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CRITICAL    HISTORY 


LANGUAGE   AND  LITERATURE 


ANTIENT  GREECE. 


VOL.  III. 


A.  and  G.  A.  Spottiswoodb, 
New-street- Square. 


c 


..^         |DEPARTC'!^NTAL 


/// 


CRITICAL   HISTORY 


LANGUAGE    AND    LITEBATURE 


ANTIENT   GREECE. 


BY 


WILLIAM    MURE 


OF    CALDWELL. 


SECOND    EDITION, 

VOL.    III. 

y\    ^ 

•  i  ^/ 

'j' 

^b 

-1 


y 


LONDON: 

LONGMAN,   BROWN,   GREEN,   AND  LONGMANS. 

1854. 


3 


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O 


CONTENTS 


THE    THIRD    VOLUME. 


BOOK   III. 

POETICAL    PERIOD.  —  LYRIC    POETRY. 
CHAPTER  I. 

GENERAL    HISTORY    OF    LYRIC    COMPOSITION    DURING    THIS    PERIOD. 

Origin  and  early  cultivation  of  Greek  Lyric  poetry. —  2.  Its  connexion 
with  music. —  3.  General  characteristics  of  the  arts  of  music  and 
dancing  in  Greece. —  4.  Elegiac  poetry.  Characteristics  of  the  Elegiac 
measure. — 5.  Origin  and  early  cultivation  of  the  Elegy. —  6.  Its  supposed 
inventors  and  principal  masters. —  7.  Iambic  poetry.  Characteristics 
of  the  Iambic  rhythm.  Its  early  cnltivation. —  8.  Melic  orders  of  Lyric 
poetry. —  9.  The  Nome.  Aulodic  Nomes.  Olympus. — 10.  Citharcedic 
Nomes.  Terpander. — 11.  Other  early  poet-musicians.  Thaletas- 
Clonas.  Xenodamus.  Polymnestus.  Xenocritus.  Sacadas.  —  12" 
Spartan  influence  on  Greek  Lyric  art. — 13.  Sparto-Dorian  school 
of  Lyric  poetry. — 14.  Strophic  and  Choral  orders  of  lyric  poetry. 
Metrical  definitions.  Melic  Strophe. — 15.  Choric  Strophe.  Anti- 
strophe.     Epode.     "  Triad  of  Stesichorus "  -  -         Page  1 

CHAP.  II. 

ORDERS    AND    OCCASIONS    OF    LYRIC    PERFORMANCE. 

.  Their  number  and  variety.     Nome.     Hymn. — 2.  Pa^an. —  3.  Hypor- 
chem.  Its  dramatic  element. —  4.  Prosodia.  Parthenia.  Daphnephorica. 

—  5.  Dithyramb.  Its  earliest  form.  Dithyramb  of  Arion. —  G.  Doric 
Mimes. —  7.  Poetical  and  metrical  characteristics  of  Arion's  Dithyramb. 

—  8.  Its  other  titles.  Cyclian  chorus.  Tragcedia,  or  Goat  song. — 
9.  Transition  from  Dithyrambic  Tragoedia  to  Attic  Tragedy.  Lyric 
Tragedy. —  10.  Lyric  Comedy.  "  Satyr  "  or  Satyric  Drama. —  IL  T'hrc- 
nus.     Song  of  Linus. — 12.  Convivial  j'oetry    (Symposiaca).     Pjean. 


VI  CONTENTS. 

Parocnia. — 13.  Soolia,  or  Greek  miisical  catches.  — 14.  Their  poetical 
and  rhythmical  characteristics.  Alliteration  and  rhyme.  — 15.  En- 
comia. Comus.  Epinicia.  —  IG.  Erotica.  Gamelia.  Ilynienfea.  Epi- 
thalamia. —  17.  Military  music:  war  sonjjs,  marches.  — 18.  "Popular" 
songs.     Definition  of.  — 19.  Extant  specimens     -         -  Page  63 

CHAP.  III. 

BIOGRAPHY      OF       I.YRIC     POETS.       CALUNUS.        ARCHILOCHUS.       SIMONIDES. 

TTRT^US. 

1.  Leading  Lyric  poets  of  this  period,  as  classed  in  the  Alexandrian 
Canon.  —  2.  Callinus.     His  age,  as  compared  with  that  of  Archilochus. 

—  3.  Character,  works,  and  times  of  Callinus.  —  4.  Archilochus. — 
5.  His  birth,  life,  and  character,  —  6.  Disappointed  love  and  revenge. 

—  7.  Promiscuous  impartiality  of  his  satire.  His  death.  —  8.  His  genius 
and  that  of  Homer  in  their  parallel  and  their  contrast.  —  9.  Redeeming 
features  of  his  moral  character.     Personal  individuality  of  his  poetry. 

—  10.  Originality  and  fertility  of  his  inventive  genius.  Details  of  his 
style  and  imagery.  Epithets.  Dialect.  — 11.  Metrical  elements  of  his 
composition.  Classification  of  his  works.  — 12.  His  genius  illustrated 
by  his  remains.  — 13.  Remarks  on  the  loss  of  his  poems.  — 14.  Simonides 
ofAmorgos. —  15.  His  poem  "On  Women."  Origin  of  Greek  poetical 
satire  against  the  female  sex.  Hesiod.  Pandora.  — 16.  Style  of  the 
poem  "  On  Women."  Other  works  of  Simonides.  — 17.  Tyrtajus.  His 
popular  biography. —  18.  Its  authenticity.  — 19.  His'  age,  character, 
works    -         -  -  -  -  -  -  -         219 

CHAP.  IV. 

ALCMAN.       ARION.       STESICHORUS.       XANTHUS.       SACADAS.       XENCCRITUS. 

EUNOMCS. 

1,  Alcman.  His  origin,  birthplace,  and  times.  —  2.  Style  and  tendency 
of  his  poetry.  His  title  to  the  character  of  "  Laconian  poet."  —  3.  His 
rhythmical  improvements.  —  4.  His  remains.  —  5.  Arion  and  his  dol- 
phin.—6.  Probable  import  of  the  legend.  —  7.  His  imputed  ode  to 
Neptune.  —  8.  Character  of  his  genuine  works.  —  9.  Stesichorus.  His 
birthplace.  His  Locrian  origin.  His  descent  from  Hesiod. — 10.  His 
family.     Intercourse  with  Phalaris.  —  11.  Blindness.     "Recantation." 

— 12.  Migration  to  Catana.     Death  and  tomb.     Personal  character. 

13.  Inventive  genius.  Epico-Iyric  style. — 14.  Its  prior  cultivation 
by  Xanthus.  — 15.  Homeric  attributes  of  Stesichorus.  — 16.  His  works 
and  their  remains.  Europia.  Geryonis.  Cerberus.  Cycnus.  Scylla. 
Athla  Pelia;.  Syothera;.  Eriphyle.  — 17.  Ilii-Persis.  —  18.  Palinodia. 
— 19.  Calyce.  Rhadina.  Pa-ans.  Apocryphal  works.  Fables. — 
20.  Metres.  Dialect.  — 21.  Other  epico-Lyric  poets.  Sacadas.  Xe- 
nocritus.     Eunomus        -  -  -  -  .  -198 


CONTENTS.  VI  J. 

CHAP.  V. 

ALCEUS.       SAPPHO.       DAMOPIIYLA.       ERINNA. 

1.  Alcffius.  His  life  and  times. — 2.  His  character,  political  and  personal. 
— 3.  His  works :  Stasiotica,  Erotica,  Convivial  songs.  Hymns.  — 
4.  Metres  invented  or  cultivated  by  him. —  5.  Sappho. —  6.  Her  birth- 
place, age,  family,  and  social  relations.  —  7.  Her  love  for  Phaon.  Her 
Leucadian  leap.  —  8.  Origin  of  the  rite. — 9.  Evidence  for  and  against 
her  performance  of  it.  — 10.  Her  personal  appearance.  Moral  habits. 
— 11.  Fallacy  of  the  late  popular  estimate  of  her  character. —  12.  How 
far  represented  by  the  antients  as  a  courtesan.  —  13.  How  represented 
in  the  Comic  drama  of  Athens.  — 14.  Apology  for  her  character  de- 
rived from  the  freedom  of -^Eolian  manners.  —  15.  Her  character  as 
portrayed  by  herself  in  her  ode  to  Venus.  —  16.  In  her  other  works. — ■ 
17.  Her  relations  to  her  female  associates.  — 18.  Critical  estimate  of 
her  genius  and  works.  Her  metres. —  19.  Branches  of  composition 
cultivated  by  her. —  20.  Damophyla.     Erinna      -  -         Page  256 

CHAP.  VI. 

MIMNKRMUS.       SOLON.       "SEVEN    SAGES."       PITTACUS.       PERIANDER. 
CLEOBUEUS.       CHIEON.       BIAS. 

1.  Mimnermus.  His  age,  birthplace,  character.  —  2.  His  works.  Style 
of  elegiac  poetry.  —  3.  Solon.  His  age,  birthplace,  family.  —  4.  Early 
life.     Salaminian  war.     Sacred  war.     Legislative  code. —  5.  Travels 

.  Interview  with  Croesus.  Narrative  of  Herodotus.  —  6.  Return  to 
Athens.  Death.  Private  character. — 7.  Poetical  compositions. 
Gnomic  school  of  poetry.  —  8.  Critical  estimate  of  Solon's  poetical 
genius  and  works.  —  9.  Poem  and  legend  of  Atlantis. —  10.  Origin 
and  import  of  the  legend. — 11.  A  pure  Platonic  allegory.  —  12.  "  Se- 
ven Sages."  Pittacus. —  13.  Periander. —  14.  Just  estimate  of  his 
character. —  15.  Cleobulus.  Cleobuline.  — 16.  Chilon.     Bias      -     332 

CHAP.  VII. 

EARLY    HISTORY    OF    WRITING    IX    GREECE. 

Part  I.     MonumeJital  Inscriptions. 

1.  Introductory  remarks.  Cadmean  tradition.  Its  historical  import. — 
2.  Rules  for  the  guidance  of  modern  research.  Number  and  peculiar 
character  of  the  early  Greek  inscribed  monuments. —  3.  Chances  of 
their  ])reservation.  —  4.  Comparative  neglect  of  Black-letter  pursuit  in 
Greece.  Supposed  literary  frauds.  Rudeness  of  the  primitive  alj)ha- 
bet. — 5.  Notices  of  early  inscribed  monuments.  Epitaphs.  Legis- 
lative  tables. —  6.  Votive   monuments    in    the    national    sanctuaries. 


VI 11  CONTENTS. 

Pausanias.  —  7.  Olympia.  Disk  of  Iphitus.  "Treasuries."  Chest  of 
Cypselus.  —  H.  Olliermonuments  at  Olympia  and  elsewhere. — 9.  Early 
Greek  archives.  — 10.  Monumcnt.s  of  the  Ante-Dorian  era.  Tripods 
of  the  Ismenian  sanctuary. —  1 1 .  Other  Cadmean  monuments  Page  397 

Part.  II.      Writing  for  Literary  Purposes. 

12.  General  remarks.  — 13.  Athenian  Ostracism. — 14.  Public  opinion  of 
early  Greece  relative  to  the  antiquity  of  writing.  State  of  education. 
in  early  Greece.  Text  of  "  Hesiod."  Of  Stesichorus.  Of  Ai'chi- 
lochus.  — 15.  Spartan  Scytale. —  16.  Education  in  Sparta.  In  Crete. 
Laws  of  Lycurgus.  Other  early  written  codes.  Philolaiis.  Phidon. 
— 17.  Want  of  convenient  material.  — 18.  A  passage  of  Thucjdides. 
Parchment.  Papyrus. — 19.  Memorial  recital,  or  rhapsodism. — 
20.  Laws  set  to  music.  Lateness  of  prose  composition. — 21.  Homer. 
—  22.  Letters  of  Bellerophou.  Other  allusions  by  Homer  to  the  art 
of  writing.     Conclusioa  -  .  -  .  -     440 


APPENDIX. 

App.  a.     On  the  relative  ages  of  Olympus  and  Terpander             -  491 

App.  B.     On  the  expression  wpurr)  and  Sevr^pa  KaTdurraais  in  Plu- 

tai-ch'  s  treatise  on  music             .....  492 

App.  C.     On  the  terms  Dorian,  Phrygian,  and  Lydian,  as  applied 

to  the  Greek  musical  harmonies  -----  493 

App.  D.     On  the  age  of  TyrtsEus  -             ....  494 
App.  E.     On    the   personal  characters  of  Anacreon,   Ai'chUochus, 

and  Sappho         ..---..  4Q5 

App.  F.     On  the  Lesbian  vice       .....  496 

App.  G.     On  Cadmus        -             -             -             -             -             -  498 

App.  H.     On  the  Treasury  of  the  Megarians  at  Olympia  -             -  499 
App.  J.     On  the   authenticity  of   the    Spartan    genealogies   and 

other  Peloponnesian  state  archives           ....  500 

App.  K.     On  the  literary  culture  of  the  Spartans                -              -  503 

App.  L.     On  the  letters  of  Bellerophon      ....  506 

App.  M.     On  the  objections  to  a  primitive  written  text  of  Homer 

founded  on  the  peculiarities  of  his  dialect            -              -  510 

App.  X.    Supplement  to  Appendix  J.  and  K.  —Reply  to  Mr.  Grote  521 

INDEX -          -  549 


CRITICAL    HISTORY, 

&c. 


BOOK  III. 

POETICAL   PERIOD.  — LYRIC   POETRY. 
CHAPTER  I. 

GENERAL    HISTORY    OF    LYRIC    COMPOSITION    DURING    THIS 

PERIOD. 

1.    RISE    AND    EARLY    CULTIVATION    OF    GREEK    LYRIC    POETRY. 2.    ITS    CON- 
NEXION   AVITU     MUSIC. 3.    GENERAL    CHARACTERISTICS     OE     THE     ARTS     OF 

MUSIC   AND    DANCING   IN    GREECE. 4.  ELEGIAC   POETRY.       CHARACTERISTICS 

OF    THE    ELEGIAC    MEASURE. 5.  ORIGIN    AND    EARLY    CULTIVATION    OF    THE 

ELEGY 6.    SUPPOSED     IN\"ENTORS     AND     PRINCIPAL    MASTERS. 7.    IAMBIC 

POETRY.        CHARACTERISTICS    OF    THE    I.OIBIC     RHYTHM.        EARLY    CULTIVA- 
TION.   8.    MELIC     ORDERS    OF    LYRIC    POETRY.  9.    THE    NOME.       AULODIC 

NO-AIES.       OLYMPUS. 10.    CITHARCEDIC    NOMES.        TERPANDER IL    OTHER 

EARLY  POET-MUSICIANS.      THALETAS.      CLONAS.      XENODAMUS.      POLYMNESTUS. 

XENOCRITUS.       SACADAS. 12.    SPARTAN    INFLUENCE    ON    GREEK    LYRIC    ART. 

13.     SPARTO -DORIAN      SCHOOL     OF    LYRIC    POETRY. 14.    STROPIIIC      AND 

CnOR^VL     ORDERS      OF      LYRIC     POETRY.         METRICAL      DEPftsITIONS.         SIELIG 

STROPHE. 15.    CHORIC     STROPHE.        ANTISTROPHE,        ERODE.       "  TRIAD     OF 

STESICHORUS. " 

1.  In  the  present  book  it  is  proposed  to  offer :  Rise  ami 

First.     A  general  outline  of  the  history  of  lyric  ^^,fion  "'"* 
poetry,  in  its    connexion  Avith  the  kindred    arts  of  Greek  lyric 

^         .  T    ^  .  poetry. 

music  and  dancing. 

Secondl3\  A  review  of  the  more  remarkable  occa- 
sions or  objects  of  lyric  celebration,  and  of  the  varie- 
ties of  hymn,  ode,  or  song,  appropriated  or  adapted 
to  each. 

Thirdly.     A  biographical  notice  of  the  more  dis- 

VOL.  III.  B 


2  ORIGIN   AND   EA1?LY    HISTORY  Book  HI. 

tingiiisbcd  lyric  poets  of  the  period,  with  critical 
remarks  on  their  2;enius  and  works. 

Attention  has  already  been  directed  in  the  pre- 
vious book  ^  to  the  origin  of  lyric  poetry,  and  to  the 
causes  which  obtained  for  the  sister  epic  art,  if  not 
the  palm  of  prior  invention,  a  preference  at  least  in 
respect  to  culture  and  preservation.  It  will  now  be 
proper  to  inquire  into  the  circumstances  to  which,  at 
a  later  epoch,  the  Lyric  Muse  was  indebted,  in  her 
turn,  for  an  equal  share  of  honourable  distinction. 

The  primary  cause  of  the  rise,  progress,  or  decline 
of  every  popular  art  is  to  be  sought  in  the  social 
condition  of  the  country  where  it  is  exercised.  The 
decay  of  the  epic  school,  the  productions  of  which 
had  hitherto  sufficed  for  the  higher  poetical  wants  of 
the  nation,  was  a  consequence  partly  of  changes  in 
the  social  state  of  Greece  unfavourable  to  the  pros- 
perity or  popularity  of  that  school,  partly  of  the 
tendency  of  all  human  art  to  degenerate  after  reacli- 
iiify  a  certain  climax  of  excellence.     The  same  ex- 

o 

ternal  influences  which  led  to  the  decline  of  the  one 
branch  of  composition,  contributed  to  the  improve- 
ment and  extension  of  the  other. 

Epic  poetry,  as  it  appears  in  the  age  and  works  of 
Homer,  is  the  poetry  of  a  whole  nation.  The  honour, 
the  interest,  or  the  ambition  of  the  individual  is  con- 
centrated around  common  objects,  of  a  grandeur  in 
the  national  estimate  which  requires  a  corresponding 
extent  and  dignity  in  the  works  devoted  to  their 
celebration.  The  break  up  of  the  old  heroic  con- 
federacy, the  substitution  of  independent  republics 
for  patriarchal  monarchies,  ^^ith  the  complexity  of 
social  interests  consequent  on  advancing  civilisation, 

^  Vol.  I.  p.  168.  sqq. 


Ch.  I.  §1.  OF   LYRIC    POETRY.  3 

produced  a  parallel  change  in  the  taste  for  literary 
pursuit.  As  the  objects  of  popular  ambition  became 
more  numerous  and  varied,  the  channels  for  the  dis- 
play of  poetical  talent  were  proportionally  multiplied. 
The  decay  of  the  heroic  minstrelsy,  originating  in 
causes  peculiar  to  itself,  involved  no  similar  decline  in 
the  national  genius,  which,  still  buoyant  and  energetic, 
sought  out  the  more  zealously  fresh  materials  for  its 
exercise.  The  attempts  of  Pisander  and  his  contem- 
poraries to  enliven  by  artificial  expedients  the  languor 
of  the  superannuated  epic  style  have  already  been 
considered.  The  same  thirst  for  novelty  led  others 
to  abandon  that  style  altogether,"  and  turn  for  relief 
from  its  dulness  to  more  original  sources.  The  nicer 
distinction  of  dialects,  coinciding  with  a  like  sub- 
division of  the  federal  body,  tended  still  further  to 
vary  and  extend  the  field  of  literary  enterprise. 
Hence,  while  the  old  epic  masterpieces  still  remained 
the  common  standards  of  jDoetical  excellence,  the 
lonians  and  iEolians  of  the  Asiatic  coast,  and  the 
Dorians  of  Southern  Greece,  the  three  races  now 
jointly  in  the  ascendant  of  the  Hellenic  body,  each 
started  forth  to  enliven,  by  some  new  style  of  treat- 
ment, the  new  subjects  and  interests  which  the  pro- 
gress of  society  had  called  into  existence. 

The  more  practical  or  "subjective"  tendency  of 
the  lyric,  as  compared  with  the  epic  order  of  com- 
position, is  strikingly  illustrated  in  several  distinctive 
features  of  their  respective  histories.  It  can  hardly 
be  doubted  that  the  earlier  ruder  stages  of  epic 
poetry  abounded  in  popular  ballads,  celebrating  the 
heroes  or  enterprises  of  the  day.  Yet  in  no  instance 
has  the  author  of  any  great  heroic  epopee  selected  his 
subject  from  contemporary  events.     A  certain  mist  of 

u  2 


4  ORIGIN    AND   EARLY    HISTORY  Book  HI. 

antiquity  was  required  to  magnify  both  actions  and 
characters  to  the  pitch  which  constituted  them  fit 
subjects  for  the  higher  inspirations  of  the  Epic  Muse. 
Her  lyric  sister,  on  the  other  hand,  recognises  the 
full  rights  of  the  present.  She  seeks  her  materials 
by  preference  in  local,  or  even  domestic  sources :  in 
the  honour  of  a  patron  deity  or  an  illustrious  citizen ; 
in  a  victory  which  the  poet  has  helped  to  achieve, 
or  a  disaster  in  which  he  has  participated.  The  dis- 
tinction is  similarly  marked  in  the  personal  lot  of  the 
authors.  In  scarcely  an  instance,  if  indeed  one  can 
be  found,  has  a  lyric  composition  of  any  note  been 
transmitted  to  posterity  anonymously.  Not  only  is 
the  poem,  whether  a  war-song  of  Tyrt^eus,  a  lampoon 
of  Archilochus,  or  a  love  melody  of  Mimnermus,  in- 
variably identified  with  the  name  and  person  of  the 
author,  in  most  cases  through  his  own  allusions  to 
himself  or  his  concerns,  but  he  is  often  himself  the 
subject  of  his  work.^  Many  of  the  greatest  epic  pro- 
ductions, on  the  other  hand,  are  either  unconnected 
with  the  name  of  any  poet,  or,  what  is  nearly  equi- 
valent, are  claimed  by  so  many,  as  to  impart  not 
only  to  the  pretensions,  but  to  the  existence,  of  those 
claimants,  a  doubtful  or  mythical  character.  Xor  is 
there  any  instance  of  a  distinct  allusion  contained  in 
a  great  epic  work  to  its  author  or  his  affairs.  The 
first   advance    towards    the   individuality    of    spirit 

^  Hence,  too,  the  number  of  allusions,  direct  or  indirect,  by  lyric  poets 
of  this  period,  from  Callinus  downwards,  to  each  other,  or  to  their  fellow 
epic  minstrels  ;  allusions  which  form  some  of  the  most  valuable  data  for 
the  illustration  of  the  obscurer  points  of  Greek  literary  history.  See  a 
catalogue  of  such  passages  in  Marcksch.  Fragm.  Hesiod.  p.  149.  sq.,  to 
which  additions  might  be  made.  No  such  notices  can  be  discovered 
either  in  the  text  of,  or  citations  from,  the  epic  poets  of  this  period. 


Ch.  I.  §  2.  OF   LYRIC    rOETRY.  5 

which  distinguishes  the  Lyric  Muse  is  observable 
in  the  Works  and  Days  of  llesiod.  That  poem 
may,  accordingly,  be  said  to  form  an  intermediate 
stage  between  the  two  branches  of  composition,  as 
being  the  production  of  a  local  school  of  poetry  de- 
voted to  a  comparatively  homely  class  of  subjects, 
and  deriving  its  chief  interest  from  its  detailed  no- 
tices of  the  author  and  his  domestic  affairs. 

2.  Another  important  cause  or  concomitant  of  the  its  con- 

T     ,  />     1  r»  1       •  •    •  nexion  with 

more  extended  culture  of  the  art  oi  lyric  composition  music, 
was  the  improvement  of  that  of  music.  These  two 
arts  were,  in  the  early  ages  of  Greece,  if  not  in- 
separable, so  closely  connected,  that  the  advance  of 
each  from  infancy  to  maturity  must  have  been  simul- 
taneous. Lyric  composition  was  invariably  destined, 
at  least  on  occasions  of  public  or  festive  recital,  for 
musical  accompaniment.  Purely  instrumental  music, 
on  the  other  hand,  at  all  times  comparatively  Uttle 
popular  among  the  Greeks^,  could  at  this  early  period 
have  exercised  proportionally  slender  influence  on 
the  progress  of  the  science.  While,  therefore,  the 
developement  of  the  more  complex  forms  of  poetical 
metre  depended  on  that  of  the  musical  schemes  or 
systems,  these,  in  their  turn,  were  similarly  indebted 
for  their  extension  and  refinement  to  the  parallel 
improvement  or  complication  of  the  poetical  measures 
to  which  they  were  adapted.  The  adjustment  of  the 
accompaniment  to  the  words,  on  the  most  delicate 
ideal  principles,  thus  became  essential  to  the  full 
effect  of  a  lyric  performance.  Hence  that  harmony 
between  the  genius  of  the  different  families  of  the 

^  Plato  repudiated  the  separation  of  music  from  poetry  as  a  corruption 
of  the  former  art.     Legg.  669.  d.  sq. ;  conf.  Boeckh  de  Metr.  Find.  258, 

B  3 


6  EARLY    HISTORY   OF   LYRIC   POETRY.       Book  ni. 

Hellenic  race  and  that  of  their  respective  lyric  and 
musical  styles,  which,  in  these  earlier  stages  of  ele- 
gant culture,  forms  so  prominent  a  feature  in  the 
character  as  well  as  literature  of  the  nation.  The 
gravity  and  severity  for  which  the  habits  and  lan- 
guage of  the  Dorians  were  proverbial,  were  also  the 
proper  attributes  of  their  music  and  poetry.  Among 
the  JEolian  colonists,  on  the  other  hand,  a  race  of  a 
naturally  ardent  temperament,  and  whose  primitive 
patriarchal  rudeness,  verging  on  ferocity  of  manners, 
was  superseded  in  their  new  seats  by  a  taste  for 
voluptuous  enjoyment,  the  change  in  their  own  cha- 
racter was  accompanied  by  a  softening  down  of  the 
native  asperities  of  their  dialect  into  an  apt  vehicle 
for  the  impassioned  strains  of  Alc^eus  and  Sappho. 
The  more  sprightly  genius  and  varied  intellect  of  the 
lonians  displays  itself  in  the  point  and  precision  of 
the  elegiac  and  iambic  orders  of  composition,  which 
they  were  the  first  to  cultivate,  and  with  which  was 
associated  a  spirited  but  somewhat  licentious  musi- 
cal st3'le,  as  distinct  from  the  severe  majesty  of  the 
Dorian  as  from  the  fervid  excitement  of  the  -£olian 
school.^ 

The  nicer  relations  between  the  two  arts  belong  to 
the  liistory  of  music  rather  than  literature.  The 
analysis  of  those  relations  is  a  subject  wdiich,  beyond 
a  few  elementary  facts,  is  involved  in  great  obscurity. 
It  is  one,  too,  which,  even  apart  from  defective  his- 
torical data,  would  demand,  for  the  full  apprehension 
of  its  more  subtle  details,  a  depth  of  insight  into  the 
theory  of  musical  science  by  no  means  necessarv  to 
the  general  student  of  classical  literature,  and  which 
few,  even  of  the  most  accomplished,  can  be  expected 

^  See  Boeckh  de  Metr.  Find.  p.  238.  sqq. 


Ch.  I.  §  2.  ITS    CONNEXION   WITH   MUSIC.  7 

to  possess.  Poetry  and  music,  to  whatever  extent 
they  may  tend  mutually  to  adorn  each  other,  and 
vitally  as  they  were  linked  together  among  the 
Greeks,  are  yet,  like  architecture  and  painting, 
literary  composition  and  elocution,  distinct  arts.  A 
building  may  derive  much  of  its  eifect  from  the  co- 
loured decoration  of  its  walls,  or  an  oration  from  the 
eloquence  of  its  recital ;  but  an  architect  is  not,  on 
this  account,  required  to  be  a  painter,  nor  an  elegant 
writer  an  orator.  Similar  is  the  relation  between 
poetry  and  music.  The  office  of  the  poet  is  to  adapt 
the  style  of  his  work,  even  in  the  form  of  expression, 
or  the  sound  of  the  words,  to  the  spirit  of  his  subject. 
The  musical  accompaniment,  like  colour  in  architec- 
ture, is  but  a  secondary  aid  to  these  primary  requi- 
sites. A  poetical  composition  which  through  the 
vehicle  of  language  alone  failed  to  produce  its  effect, 
and  was  solely  dependant  on  its  musical  arrangement, 
would  be  but  a  sorry  performance. 

The  question  here  naturally  arises,  how  far,  among 
the  Greeks,  the  functions  of  poet  and  musician  may 
have  been  combined  in  the  same  person.  It  must 
certainly  have  been  desirable,  in  the  spirit  of  the  Greek 
Lyric  Muse,  in  order  to  secure  the  requisite  harmony 
between  the  words  and  the  air  of  a  composition,  that 
both  should  be  the  produce  of  the  same  genius ;  and 
such,  there  is  reason  to  believe,  was  frequently  the 
case  in  the  infancy  of  musical  science,  among  a  people 
so  highly  gifted  in  regard  to  all  the  imaginative  facul- 
ties. But  neither  probability  nor  historical  data  war- 
rant the  belief  that  this  was  the  universal  rule  ^,  or 

^  Among  the  most  celebrated  performances  of  Terpander  was  his 
arrangement  of  portions  of  the  Homeric  poems,  where  a  lyric  character 
predominates,  as  musical  nomcs.     Plut.  de  Mus.  in. 

B   4 


8  EARLY    HISTORY    OF   LYRIC    POETRY.       Book  III. 

that  all  tlie  great  lyric  poets,  from  Callinus  down  to 
Callimachus,  were  also  accomplished  musical  com.- 
posers.  Nor  can  it  be  supposed  that  the  original 
words  would  be  held  at  all  times  inseparable  from 
the  original  melody.  The  same  ode  might  acquire 
popularity  in  different  places,  where  different  musical 
tastes  prevailed.  The  air  might,  in  such  cases,  be 
varied  at  pleasure,  without  real  detriment  to  the 
literary  character  of  the  composition.  It  may  also 
be  presumed  that,  from  the  earliest  period  at  which 
the  two  arts  had  reached  that  stage  of  maturity  in 
which  they  already  appear  in  the  days  of  Archiloclius 
and  Terpander  (b.  c.  676),  there  was,  besides  the 
public  or  festive,  also  the  purely  literary  enjoyment 
of  lyric  composition,  through  the  medium  of  written 
circidation,  without  the  aid  either  of  voice  or  instru- 
ment. 

Wherever  the  above  relation  between  the  two  arts 
was  reversed,  and  the  words  of  an  ode  became  alto- 
gether secondary  to  the  air,  the  case  would  pass  from 
the  j)rovince  of  poetical  into  that  of  musical  criticism. 
The  parallel  of  the  modern  opera  is  here  closely  in 
point.  As  a  general  rule,  the  words  of  the  Italian 
musical  dramas,*  where  not  mere  vapid  commonplace, 
possess  no  pretensions  to  higher  poetical  excellence. 
They  are  but  a  vehicle  for  the  execution  of  the  music, 
which  is  alone  responsible  for  the  effect  on  the  au- 
dience. There  are  however  exceptions  to  this  rule, 
supplying  cases  analogous  to  the  Greek  lyric  re- 
hearsals. Many  of  the  popular  dramas  of  Metastasio, 
for  example,  were  composed  for  musical  recitation, 
and  the  odes  in  which  they  abound  were  arranged  to 
melodies;  yet  the  intrinsic  poetical  value  of  those 
compositions  has  secured   for   them,    apart  from  all 


Ch.  I.  §  3.  ITS    CONNEXION   WITH   MUSIC.  9 

musical  aids,  a  permanent  popularity  with  the  read- 
ing public.     If  a  knowledge  of  the  sister  art  can  be 
dispensed  with  in  a  case  where  the  means  of  obtain- 
ing that  knowledge  exist,  still  less  essential  must  it 
be  in  one  where  the  utmost  extent  to  which  it  can 
be  acquired  amounts  to  a  few  doubtful  antiquarian 
speculations.     All,  therefore,  that  here  falls  strictly 
within  the  province  of  the  literary  historian  is  the 
fact  that  lyric  compositions  were,  among  the  Greeks, 
especially   in   the  public  festivals,    far  more  closely 
and  habitually  combined  than  in  modern  times  with 
musical  execution,  and  that  the  latter  was  adapted  to 
the  genius  of  the  poem  on  the  most  refined  ideal  prin- 
ciples.^    As,  however,  the  general  connexion  between 
the  two  arts  will  necessarily  form  the  subject  of  fre- 
quent allusion  in  the  sequel,  it  will  here  be  proper, 
without   enlarging  on  the  nicer  links   of  that  con- 
nexion, to  oifer  a  concise' notice  of  the  Greek  musical 
systems,  and  of  the  terminology  by  which  they  are 
distinguished. 

3.  The  foundation  of  the  Greek  art  of  music ^  was  General 
the  tetrachord,  or  four-stringed  lyre,  an  instrument  "i^ZsT' 
furnishing,  as  its  name  indicates,   but  four  distinct  '^l^'^J^ 
sounds  or  tones.     The  limited  variety  of  accompani-  dancing  in 
ment  which  these  sounds  supplied  seems  to  have  suf- 
ficed for  the  recitative  of  the  epic  minstrelsy  during 
its  flourishing  ages.     AYith  the  progress  of  lyric  art, 
the  number  of  strings  was  increased  to  seven  (b.  c. 
G76),  the  first  and  last  of  which,  by  the  omission  of 
a  centre  tone  of  the  scale,  were  placed  at  the  interval 
of  an  octave  from  each  other.     The  different  key  or 

1  See  especially  Arist.  Polit.  viii.  vil. ;  Plato  de  Legg.  p.  669.  sq. ; 
Burette,  Mem.  de  1' Acad,  des  Inscr.  vol.  x,  p.  212. 

^^  Boeckh  de  Metr.  PInd.  p.  204.  &([({. ;  Thiersch,  Einleit.  zu  Pind. 
p.  40.  sq. 


I 


10  EARLY    HISTORY    OF    LYRIC    POETRY.       Book  III. 

pitch  in  whicli  this  scale  of  chords  was  strung  con- 
stituted the  fundamental  distinction  between  the 
national  styles  or  harmonies.^  Of  these  there  were 
at  first  but  three,  the  Dorian,  Phrygian,  and  Lydian. 
The  Dorian  was  in  the  lowest  key ;  the  Phrygian  was 
strung  a  tone  higher  than  the  Dorian  ;  the  Lydian  a 
tone  higher  than  the  Phrygian.  Not  long  after  the 
regulation  of  these  three  primary  harmonies  two 
others  were  invented :  the  Ionian  between  the  Dorian 
and  Phrygian,  the  jEolian  between  the  Phrygian  and 
Lydian  ;  the  interval  between  the  key  note  of  each 
harmony  and  that  of  the  next  in  order  being  here, 
consequently,  but  half  a  tone.  Besides  the  key  or 
tone,  these  styles  were  characterised  by  the  genius  of 
their  metrical  numbers."  The  Dorian  measure  was 
distinguished  by  a  grave  and  equable  modification  of 
notes,  and  a  corresponding  arrangement  of  the  words, 
with  a  prevalence  of  long  syllables  and  uniform  suc- 
cession of  feet.  In  the  Phrygian  and  Lydian,  and 
their  respective  modifications,  the  Ionian  and  Jj^olian, 
a  livelier,  more  flexible,  sometimes  turbulent  or  en- 
thusiastic rhythm  was  preferred.  In  the  different 
harmonies,  these  peculiarities  of  national  style  de- 
pended mainly  for  their  developement  on  the  different 
modes  of  applying  to  each  the  three  musical  scales 
or  "  genera,"  still  familiarly  known  under  the  titles 
of  diatonic,  chromatic,  and  enharmonic  ;  according  to 
which  the  seven  notes  of  the  octave  were  intonated, 
and  the  intervals  between  each  note  regulated,  in 
the  adaptation  of  the  instrument  to  different  styles 
of  performance.^ 

^  Boeckh  de  Metr.  Find.  p.  212.  sqq. ;  Thiersch,  Einleit.  zu  Pmd. 
p.  44.  sqq. 

^  Aiictt.  ap.  Boeckh  de  Metr.  Find.  p.  238.  sqq.  276.  sqq. 
3  Boeckh  op.  cit.  p.  207. 


Ch.  I.  §3.  ITS    CONNEXION   WITH   MUSIC.  11 

The  above  three  or  five  primitive  harmonies  form 
the  basis  of  numerous  other  subordinate  varieties, 
under  the  titles  of  Hypophrygian,  Hypolydian,  Mixo- 
lydian,  and  others  similar.  This  multiplication  of 
styles,  involving  a  proportional  mixture  or  confusion 
of  the  antient  fundamental  forms  in  which  the  new 
varieties  originated,  is  censured  by  the  best  native 
critics  as  a  corruption  of  the  popular  taste,  concurrent 
with  the  general  decline  in  the  character  of  the  nation. 

One  of  the  few  distinctly  recorded  facts  in  the 
history  of  antient  music  is,  that,  at  least  during  this 
earlier  more  genial  period  of  the  art,  the  rhythmical 
numbers  of  the  air  were  far  more  essentially  de- 
pendant on  the  poetical  numbers  of  the  song  than  in 
modern  times.  The  accompaniment  was  considered, 
as  a  general  rule,  altogether  subservient  to  the  words, 
both  in  its  adaptation  to  the  character  and  genius  of 
the  poem,  and  in  the  special  adjustment  of  its  num- 
bers to  the  length  or  brevity,  gravity  or  vivacity,  of 
the  verses  and  of  their  syllables  and  feet.-"-  The  best 
or  only  practical  insight  therefore,  into  the  musical 
element  of  Greek  lyric  poetry,  is  the  familiarity 
which  every  competent  scholar  possesses  with  the 
fundamental  laws  of  prosody,  quantity,  and  versi- 
fication.^    The  analysis  of  these  laws  belongs  to  the 

1  Plato  de  Rep.  p.  400.  ;  Aristot.  Probl.  xix.  9.  ;  Plut.  de  M.  xxxv. ; 
conf.  Ilerni.  Doctr.  Rei  metr.  p.  660.  sqq.  The  neglect  or  reversal  of 
this  rule,  and  the  degradation  of  the  words  of  the  song,  as  in  modern 
operatic  music,  into  vehicles  for  the  display  of  licentious  musical  com- 
binations, or  of  brilliant  powers  of  vocal  or  instrumental  execution,  formed 
one  of  the  conniptions  of  national  taste  consequent  on  the  later  complica- 
tions of  the  theory  and  practice  of  music  above  adverted  to. 

^  Beyond  these  elementary  principles  the  science  of  Greek  metres  is 
itself  a  mystery,  forming,  in  fact,  a  chapter  of  the  same  general  field  of 
investigation  as  that  concerning  the  more  subtle  connexion  of  the  musical 
and  poetical  arts,  and  offering  the  same  poverty  of  tangible  results.    This 


12  EARLY    HISTORY    OF   LYRIC   POETRY.       Book  III. 

grammar  of  the  language,  not  to  its  history,  where 
they  can  fitly  be  considered  but  "svith  reference  to 
the  mode  of  their  application  by  different  authors  or 
schools  of  poetry. 

]\Iuch  of  what  has  here  been  said  of  music  applies 
also  to  the  sister  art  of  dancing,  on  which  certain 
orders  of  Greek  lyric  composition  seem  to  have 
been  little  less  dependant  for  their  full  effect  than 
on  the  musical  accompaniment.^  With  the  varied 
movements  of  the  festive  dance  were  more  imme- 
diately connected,  in  their  origin  or  their  artistic 
arrangement,  those  varieties  of  poetical  form  which 
under  the  names  of  Strophe,  Antistrophe,  and  Epode, 
constitute  so  prominent  a  characteristic  of  the  more 
advcanced  stages  of  lyric  art.  Several  of  the  more 
popular  styles  of  poetical  composition  are  also 
identical,  in  name  and  origin,  with  the  dances  to 
which  they  were  chiefly  adapted.  In  Homer,  the 
Threnus  or  dirge,  and  the  P?ean  are  the  only  two 
classes  of  song  with  which  dancing  is  not  combined; 
and  in  the  immediately  subsequent  age  the  Paean  no 
longer  forms  an  excej)tion.-  In  the  festive  halls  of 
Ithaca,  Scheria,  and  Sparta  the  bard  not  only  plays, 
but  sings,  to  the  dance  of  the  suitors,  of  the  Phteacian 
youths,  and  of  the  guests  of  Menelaus.     A  similar 

sufficiently  appears  from  the  wide  discrepancies  in  the  respective  views  of 
the  two  distinguished  modern  grammarians,  Hermann  (Doctrina  Rei 
metr.)  and  Boeckh  (De  IMetris  Pindari),  who  have  bestowed  the  greatest 
amount  of  labour  and  ingenuity  on  the  subject.  The  scholar  who  cor- 
rectly appreciates  the  more  recondite  excellences  of  Greek  rhythmical 
science  according  to  the  one,  must  be  a  stranger  to  them  in  the  esti- 
mation of  the  other.  See  Herm.  op.  cit.  Pra?f.  p.  xvii. ;  Boeckh,  Expl. 
Pind.  pp.  093—698. ;  conf.  Thiersch,  Einleit.  zu  Pind.  p.  66. 

1  Lucian.  de  Salt.  Athen.  Deip.  siv.  p.  631,  alibi;  Boeckh  de  Metr. 
Pind.  p.  269.  sqq. 

'  Horn.  Hymn.  ApoU.  Pyth.  338.  sqq. 


Cu.  I.  §  4.  THE    ELEGY.  13 

accompaniment  enlivens  the  evolutions  of  the  vine- 
dressers on  the  shield  of  Achilles,  and  those  of  the 
more  accomplished  performers  in  the  Cretan  dance  of 
Daedalus,  in  another  compartment  of  the  same  sculp- 
tured series.  The  word  Chorus,  signifying  in  later 
usage  a  concert  of  voices,  denoted  in  earlier  times 
simply  a  dance,  or  even,  in  the  stricter  usage  of  pri- 
mitive art,  a  place  .suitable  for  such  exercises.^  The 
custom  of  the  dancers  joining  in  the  song  led  to  the 
term  being  extended  to  each  kind  of  performance. 
Finally,  on  the  greater  distinction  of  the  two  arts, 
and  the  substitution  in  the  tragic  chorus  of  the  pro- 
cessional march  and  gestures  for  the  ordinary  dance, 
the  phrase  was  appropriated  in  a  great  measure  by 
the  art  of  music.  The  more  extended  application 
of  it  maintained  its  ground  however,  during  the 
flourishing  age  of  Ijnc  poetry,  in  regard  to  many  of 
the  higher  branches  of  festive  solemnity. 

4.  It  has  already  been  shown,  that  while  epic  com-  Eicgiac 
position  was  indebted  for  its  highest  perfection  to 
iEolian  genius,  the  chief  seat  of  its  later  cultivation 
and  subsequent  decline  was  the  neighbouring  region 
of  Ionia.  That  decline  however,  it  has  also  been 
remarked,  was  but  a  prelude  to  a  spirited  develope- 
ment  of  the  national  talent  in  a  new  direction.  In 
the  same  Ionia  the  first  fruits  of  this  revival  were 
brought  to  maturity  in  the  elegy  and  iambic  trimeter. 
These  two  branches  of  composition,  if  they  cannot  be 
proved  to  be  next  to  the  hexameter  the  earliest  cul- 
tivated, are  those  at  least  of  which  the  next  most 
antient  remains  have  been  preserved.     Each,  while 

'  In  this  sense  it  is  chiefly,  perhaps  exclusively,  used  by  Homer.  II, 
xviii.  590.,  Od.  VIII.  260.,  xii.  4.  318.  Hence,  also,  a  part  in  some  in- 
stances the  whole,  of  the  agora  of  cities,  where  dances  were  performed  in 
primitive  times,  is  said  to  have  been  called  x^P"^-    Pausan.  ni.  xl.  7. 


poetry. 


14 


EARLY    mSTORY   OF   LYRIC    POETRY.       Book  III. 


Character- 
istics of 
the  elegiac 
measure. 


conventionally  classed  as  lyric,  might  perhaps  with 
greater  propriety  be  defined  as  a  medium  between 
the  lyric  and  epic  ;  a  first  step  in  the  transition  from 
the  one  to  the  other  style  of  popular  art.  Of  the  two, 
the  elegy  possesses  upon  the  whole  the  strongest 
claims  to  priority,  as  well  on  historical  grounds,  as 
from  its  close  connexion  with  the  old  heroic  measure, 
of  which  the  pentameter  may  be  considered,  theoreti- 
cally at  least,  but  a  slight  modification,  adapting  it  to 
more  homely  and  familiar  objects. 

For  the  better  understanding  of  the  nature  of  this 
modification,  attention  must  be  recalled  to  those  pro- 
perties of  the  hexameter  verse  formerly  ^  pointed  out 
as  peculiarly  fitting  it  for  epic  composition ;  to  the 
variety  and  flexibility  of  its  metrical  numbers,  and 
the  scope  which  they  aftorded  both  to  narrative  con- 
tinuity and  dramatic  mechanism,  in  the  treatment  of 
every  kind  of  subject.  These  properties  were  illus- 
trated by  the  contrast  of  certain  other  systems  of  epic 
versification,  where  the  text  is  subdivided  into  groups 
of  lines,  forming,  in  their  successive  repetition,  dis- 
tinct metrical  stanzas  or  clauses  of  the  narrative. 

This  subdivision  of  the  metrical  text,  and  into  very 
minute  parts,  is  the  special  characteristic  of  the 
elegiac,  as  compared  with  the  purely  hexameter 
order  of  versification.  The  fundamental  base  or  ele- 
ment of  the  former  is  not,  as  in  the  hexameter,  a 
single  line,  but  a  distich  or  couplet,  formed  by  sub- 
joining to  the  heroic  verse  another  shorter  line  con- 
sisting of  the  same  dactylic  elements,  and  commonly 
called  the  pentameter.     The  single  distich  ^  is  named, 

1  Vol.  II.  p.  103.  sq. 

^  The  employment  of  the  pentameter  in  its  single  capacity  was  never 
countenanced  by  classical  usage.     The  few  examples  which  occur  belong 


1 


Cu.  I.  §4.  THE    ELEGY.  15 

technically,  an  Elegium.  The  elegy  or  elegiac  poem 
(Elegia)  is  but  a  repetition  of  the  distich  in  numbers 
proportioned  to  the  extent  of  the  subject.  The  obvious 
effect  of  this  combination  of  the  longer  and  shorter 
measures,  enhanced  by  a  peculiar  abruptness  in  the 
central  caesure  of  the  latter,  and  in  its  closing  foot  or 
"  catalexis,"  is  to  impart  a  certain  emphatic  point 
to  the  entire  period.  This  branch  of  composition 
therefore  is  essentially  epigrammatic  or  sententious. 
Its  scope  and  tendency  is  to  express  concisely  and 
emphatically,  in  the  case  of  the  single  distich  a  cer- 
tain statement  or  maxim ;  in  that  of  the  prolonged 
elegy  a  series  of  similar  statements  or  maxims.  Each 
distich  forms,  it  is  true,  a  concise  metrical  system, 
capable,  like  the  hexameter  verse,  of  being  multiplied 
into  a  poem  of  any  length.  But  the  process  of  repe- 
tition is  here  far  from  offering  the  same  freedom  and 
facilities  for  the  treatment  of  a  varied  and  extensive 
subject.  Each  pentameter  couplet  ought,  obviously, 
in  the  true  spirit  of  the  Elegiac  muse,  either  itself 
to  comprise  a  distinct  clause  or  period  of  the  sense,  or 
at  least  to  form  a  subdivision  of  another  more  com- 
prehensive clause  or  head  of  argument  terminating 
in  a  pentameter  verse ;  in  other  words,  every  full 
pause  in  the  sense  ought  to  coincide  with  a  full  pause 
in  the  measure.  Where  a  continuous  head  of  the  sub- 
ject runs  through  the  close  of  one  distich  into  the 
commencement  of  another,  there  results  a  palpable  in- 
congruity, which  becomes  the  more  glaring  when  the 
ensuing  pause  takes  place  in  the  body  of  the  distich; 
whether  at  the  close  of  the  hexameter  or  in  the  middle 

either  to  tlie  lower  ages  of  Greek  literature,  or  are  to  be  considered  as 
mere  specimens  of  poetical  caprice.  See  Bode,  Gesch.  d.  Hellen.  Dichtk. 
vol.  II.  p.  136.  sq. 


16  EARLY    HISTORY    OF    LYRIC    POETRY.       Book  III. 

of  either  verse.  Not  only,  therefore,  is  the  elegy  dis- 
qualified by  its  epigrammatic  spirit  for  continuous 
narrative,  but  even  in  its  own  proper  sphere  compa- 
rative brevity  is  essential  to  the  full  effect  of  an  elegiac 
poem.  A  protracted  series  of  such  epigrammatic  com- 
mentaries, upon  any  subject,  can  hardly  fail  to  prove 
jejune  and  monotonous.  These  anomalies,  it  is  true, 
are  all  more  or  less  authorised  by  the  practice  of  the 
great  professional  masters  of  this  style,  in  their  na- 
tural anxiety  to  adapt  their  favourite  meails  to  every 
kind  of  object.  The  real  impropriety  however  does 
not  the  less  exist :  and,  despite  the  ingenuity  with 
which  it  may  be  smoothed  over,  the  discerning  critic 
must,  in  his  own  experience,  have  felt  how  much  su- 
perior is  the  effect  of  the  elegiac  measure  in  the 
pointed  epigram,  and  other  concise  and  pithy  com- 
positions, than  in  prolonged  poetical  narratives  or 
moral  dissertations. 
Origin  and  5.  In  any  theory  therefore  as  to  the  origin  of  this 
vation.  mcasurc,  we  may  safely  assume,  by  reference  both  to 
the  o-eneral  law  of  human  invention  and  to  the  dis- 

o 

criminating  taste  which  marks  the  developement  of  art 
among  the  Greeks,  that  the  elegiac  distich  was  called 
into  existence  by  the  object  to  which  it  was  best 
adapted,  that  of  modifying  the  old  dactylic  metre  to 
fiimiliar  epigrammatic  purposes. 

This  view  is  confirmed  by  the  fact  that  the  elegy 
was  the  measure  solely  or  chiefly  employed,  in  early 
times,  for  sepulchral  or  dedicatory  inscriptions :  the 
kind  of  epigrammatic  composition  which  would  first, 
or  alone,  suggest  itself  as  an  object  of  polite  culture. 
The  parent  term  Elegos,  whence  Elegium  and  Elegia, 
denotes  accordingly,  in  its  earliest  usage,  mourning 
or  sorrow ;  as  we  learn  from  the  united  testimony  of 


Ch.  I.  §  5.  THE    ELEGY.  17 

the  antient  critics  \  confirmed  by  its  own  probable 
etymology.^  It  is  accordingly  classed  by  some  of  the 
same  authorities,  though  not  with  strict  propriety, 
as  identical  with  Threnus.  The  threnus  was  the 
dirge,  or  funeral  lament,  sung  over  the  corpse,  or 
during  the  funeral  solemnity.  The  elegy  was  the 
more  permanent  tribute  of  mournful  respect  to  the 
memory  of  the  deceased,  recording  his  own  virtues 
with  the  regrets  of  his  friends,  and  commonly  en- 
graved on  his  monument.  So  peculiarly  was  the 
elegiac  measure,  in  the  subsequent  stages  of  its  cul- 
tivation, considered  as  proper  to  poems  of  a  doleful 
tendency,  that  the  name  Elegy  was  extended,  in 
vulgar  use,  even  to  those  of  like  character  where 
a  different  metre  was  preferred. 

To  this  view,  however,  it  has  been  objected^,  that 
the  extant  elegiac  compositions  of  remote  antiquity 
are  for  the  most  part  in  a  style  quite  opposite  to 

^  Didym.  ap.  Etym.  M.  v.  'E\€7eia ;  Prod.  Chrestom.  p.  379.  Gaisf. ; 
Drac.  Straton.  de  Metr.  p.  161.  sq. ;  conf.  Aristopb.  Av.  217. ;  Eurip, 
Hel.  186.,  Iphig.  Taur.  146.  alibi;  alios  ap.  Frank.  Callinus. 

^  For  the  infinity  of  speculative,  often  very  fanciful  hypotheses  upon 
this  point,  see  Frank.  Callin.  p.  42.  alibi;  Welck,  der  Elegos,  Kleine 
Schr.  vol.  I.  p.  63. ;  Osann,  Beytrage  zur  Gr.  Literaturgesch.  vol.  i. 
p.  11. ;  Ulrici,  Gesch.  der  Hell.  Dichtk.  vol.  n.  p.  101.  sq. ;  Bode,  Gesch. 
der  Hell.  Dichtk.  vol.  ii.  p.  120.  sqq.  The  most  reasonable  etymology 
appears  to  be  that  which  connects  the  term  with  eXeos  or  &\yoc.  But 
even  this  connexion  is  obscure  and  doubtful.  All  that  can  safely  be 
assumed  is,  that  the  word  was  originally  of  mournful  import. 

3  Frank.  Call.  p.  7.  sqq.,  36.  sqq. ;  conf.  Ulrici,  loc.  sup.  cit.  The  doc- 
trine of  these  authors,  that  the  first  application  of  the  elegy  to  mournful 
purposes  was  not  earlier  than  the  time  of  Mimnermus,  a  century  after 
Callinus,  seems  quite  inconsistent  with  their  admission,  as  above  quoted, 
of  the  originally  mournful  signification  of  the  term.  Equally  groundless 
is  the  assumption  of  Frank,  (p.  77.),  that  the  phrase  Elegos  and  its  de- 
rivatives were  first  invented  in  the  age  of  Simonides.  The  former  term 
occurs  a  full  generation  earlier,  in  an  epigram  of  Echembrotus,  a  poet  of 
the  XLVith  Olympiad.  Paus.  x.  vii.  3. 
VOL.  III.  C 


18  EARLY    HISTORY    OF    LYRIC    POETRY.       Book  III. 

either  the  funebral  or  the  epigrammatic,  being  chiefly 
martial  or  patriotic  appeals,  often  of  considerable 
length,  addressed  to  the  poet's  fellow-citizens  in  times 
of  pubHc  emergency.  These  poems  however,  while 
possibly  the  oldest  ascertained  specimens  of  penta- 
meter style,  cannot  reasonably  be  assumed  to  re- 
present the  taste  or  practice  in  which  that  style 
originated.  The  distinction  between  what  may  for- 
merly have  existed,  and  what  has  been  preserved  to 
posterity,  is  one  of  essential  importance  in  questions 
of  this  nature.  The  elegy,  in  the  works  of  Callinus, 
and  othersof  its  earliest  recorded  professional  votaries, 
already  appears  in  an  advanced  state  of  cultivation, 
implying  a  long  course  of  previous  practice,  and 
consequent  modification  of  its  primitive  use.  Their 
compositions  stand  to  its  first  beginnings  in  the  same 
relation  as  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  to  the  earlier  efi'orts 
of  the  Epic  Muse.  It  were  as  reasonable  to  argue, 
from  the  actual  priority  of  the  Iliad,  that  the  first 
yjoem  in  hexameter  verse  was  a  finished  epopee,  as  from 
the  existing  compositions  of  Callinus,  admitting  him  to 
be  the  most  antient  author  in  this  style,  that  the  first 
elegy  was  a  martial  or  political  ode.  For  the  great 
antiquity  of  the  elegy,  however,  in  its  application  to 
what  has  here  been  assumed  to  be  its  original 
object,  appeal  may  be  made  to  Archilochus,  an 
author  of  the  same  age  as  Callinus,  but  of  far  more 
varied  genius.  The  remains  of  the  former  poet, 
while  exhibiting  the  measure  in  its  adaptation  to  every 
variety  of  subject,  plaintive,  martial,  and  satirical, 
ofl'er,  together  with  several  elegies  of  a  funebral 
character,  a  general  predominance  of  those  of  the 
epigrammatic  order. ^     But,   even  did  the   works  of 

'  Ap.  Bergk.  Poett.  Lyr.  Gr.  p.  467.  sqq. 


Ch.  I.  §5.  THE    ELEGY.  19 

these  earlier  poets  furnish  no  distinct  proof  of  this 
presumed  original  destination  of  the  measure,  there 
remains  another  more  competent  source  of  illustration 
in  the  sepulchral  or  votive  dedications  of  the  same 
era.  The  existing  relics  of  this  class,  though  scanty, 
in  the  ratio  of  their  antiquity,  yet  form  a  more  or  less 
continuous  series  of  evidence  that,  during  this  whole 
early  period,  from  an  epoch  equal  or  little  inferior  to 
that  of  the  poets  above  cited,  the  pentameter  was  the 
measure  exclusively  preferred  in  monumental  inscrip- 
tions. The  general  rule  is  curiously  confirmed  by  the 
exceptions,  the  few  dedications  where  the  hexameter 
verse  occurs  being  confined,  solely  or  chiefly,  to  such 
occasions  as  either  possessed  or  pretended  to  an  anti- 
quity prior  to  the  age  at  which  the  elegiac  measure  is 
supposed  to  have  come  into  popular  use.  Another  in- 
direct proof  of  the  essentially  epigraphic  character  of 
the  latter  measure  is  the  circumstance,  that  the  only 
other  compositions  of  a  like  brief  or  sententious  na- 
ture emanating  from  the  same  period,  the  oracular 
responses,  are  with  equal  constancy  couched  in  hexa- 
meters. This  may  be  ascribed  partly  to  a  religious 
veneration  for  primeval  custom,  partly  to  the  heroic 
measure  being  itself,  in  a  poetical  point  of  view,  better 
suited  to  the  dignity  or  sanctity  of  such  edicts.^ 

'  Of  the  thirty  or  forty  dedicatory  epitaphs  or  epigrams  given  by 
Pausanias,  all  are  pentameters  but  three ;  two  of  which  (i.  xxxvii.,  ix.  xi.), 
as  in  honour  of  mythical  heroes,  are  appropriately  embodied  in  the  hex- 
ameter measure.  The  only  hexameter  distich  connected  with  the  histo- 
rical age  is  that  to  Miltiades  (vi.  xix.).  Of  those  in  elegiac  measure, 
four  or  five  may  belong  to  this  earliest  lyric  period  (iv.  xxii.,  v.  xxiv., 
IX.  xxxviii.,  X.  vii.).  To  these  may  be  added  the  inscription  of  Orrhip- 
pus  at  Megara  (Boeckh,  Inscr.  torn.  i.  p.  553. ;  Clint,  ad  01.  xv.).  The 
oracles  cited  by  Pausanias,  on  the  other  hand,  about  thirty  in  number, 
are  all  in  hexameters,  with  the  exception  of  one  in  iambics  (iv.  ix.).    Tite 

<■  Q 


20  EARLY    HISTORY    OF    LYRIC    POETRY.       Book  III. 

Supposed  6.  There  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt  that  the  remote 

and  prin-  Origin  of  the  elegiac  distich  is  lost,  like  that  of  the 
masters.  hexametcr  verse,  in  the  mists  of  antiquity.  When 
therefore  we  find,  according  to  the  prevailing  practice 
of  confounding  the  higher  cultivation  of  an  art  with 
its  invention,  the  merit  of  that  invention  variously 
ascribed  in  the  present  case  to  Callinus  and  Archi- 
lochus,  the  only  real  question  of  precedence  must 
relate  to  the  age  of  these  authors,  or  of  others  of 
still  greater  antiquity,  if  such  can  be  pointed  out, 
from  whom  genuine  specimens  of  this  style  of  com- 
position have  been  transmitted.  Both  these  poets 
flourished  towards  the  close  of  the  eighth  or  com- 
mencement of  the  seventh  century  b.  c.  They  are 
by  consequence  so  nearly  contemporaneous,  that  the 
closer  examination  of  their  claims  to  priority,  as  of  no 
material  bearing  on  the  history  of  elegiac  poetry,  will 
be  reserved  for  the  chapter  on  their  personal  history. 
The  same  measure  was  also  cultivated  in  its  primary 
epigrammatic  form  by  Asius  of  Saraos^,  an  epic  poet 
of  uncertain  age,  but  possessing  claims,  perhaps,  to 
equal  antiquity  with  either  Callinus  or  Archilochus. 
Their  younger  contemporary  Tyrt^eus  was  distin- 
guished, still  more  than  Callinus,  for  its  application 

same  general  rules  apply,  with  rare  exception  if  any,  to  similar  speci- 
mens of  these  various  orders  of  monumental  or  sacred  literature  pre- 
served by  other  compilers. 

The  inscriptions  on  the  Chest  of  Cypselus  (Paus.  v.  xviii.  sq.)  are 
in  hexameter  verse  ;  but  they  are  of  a  properly  epic  character.  It  is 
also  probable  that  the  age  of  this  monument  may  be  prior  to  the  familiar 
use  of  the  elegy.  This  latter  remark  applies  further  to  the  epigrams 
cited  by  Herodotus  (v.  lix.  sq.)  in  the  Ismenian  sanctuary,  whether  ge- 
nuine or  forgeries. 

^  A  single  epigram  of  Asius,  alluding,  it  would  seem,  to  Homer's 
fabulous  father  Meles,  has  been  preserved  by  Athenaeus  (m.  p.  125.  d.  ; 
conf.  Bergk.  Poet.  Lyr.  p.  313  ). 


Ch.  I.  §6.  THE    ELEGY.  21 

to  martial  and  political  subjects.  About  the  same 
time  certain  of  the  earlier  Greek  musicians,  Olympus, 
Clonas,  Terpander,  Sacadas,  and  others,  are  mentioned 
as  authors  of  elegies ;  but  it  seems  doubtful  whether 
the  term  here  applies  to  the  pentameter  measure, 
or  to  the  plaintive  style  of  music  with  which  that 
measure  was  originally  connected.^ 

The  next  elegiac  poet  of  any  celebrity  is  Mim- 
nermus  of  Colophon,  who  flourished  about  the  close  of 
the  seventh  century  b.  c.  To  him  belongs  the  credit 
of  having  greatly  extended  the  use  of  the  pentameter 
measure  in  the  more  plaintive  style  of  amatory  com- 
position, its  adaptation  to  which  constituted,  in  later 
times,  its  chief  source  of  general  popularity.^ 

Coeval  with  Mimnermus  was  Solon,  in  whose 
remains,  and  those  of  his  contemporary  Sages,  are 
the  first  distinct  traces  of  the  gnomic  or  didactic 
elegy.  This  style  was  extensively  cultivated  in  the 
latter  half  of  the  sixth  century  B.C.  by  Phocylides 
and  Theognis.  During  the  same  period  flourished 
Xenophanes  of  Colophon,  who  seems  first  to  have 
employed  the  pentameter  measure  in  prolonged  nar- 
rative compositions ;  and  Simon  ides  of  Ceos,  Avho 
above  all  his  predecessors  gave  prominence  and  eff'ect, 
as  a  cultivated  branch  of  literature,  to  the  strictly 
epigrammatic  style  of  elegiac  poetry. 

^  Plut.  de  Mus.  III.  VIII. ;  Suid.  v.  "OXv/x-kos.  It  appears  probable,  from 
these  passages  and  other  sources  referred  to  in  p.  17.  supra,  that  the 
term  Elegos,  in  its  origin,  attached  with  equal,  or  perhaps  greater  pro- 
priety to  the  melody  than  to  the  words  of  a  composition. 

^  Mimnermus  was  celebrated  on  this  account  by  Hermesianax  ap. 
Athen.  xni.  p.  597.  sq.  This  passage,  misinterpreted  by  later  uncritical 
writers,  obtained  for  the  same  poet  with  those  writers,  in  spite  of  the 
notoriously  far  higher  antiquity  of  Callinus  and  Archilochus,  the  credit 
of  first  "inventor"  of  the  elegiac  measure.  Conf.  Frank,  op.  cit.  p.  9. 
sqq. 

c  .3 


22  EARLY    HISTORY    OF    LYRIC    POETRY.       Book  III. 

In  the  sequel  of  the  Attic  period  Antimachus  of 
Colophon,  an  early  contemporary  of  Plato,  distin- 
guished himself  in  the  tender  amorous  elegy  as  an 
imitator  or  emulator  of  his  fellow-citizen  j\limnermus, 
by  whom  that  style  had  been  first  carried  to  perfec- 
tion. In  the  Alexandrian  school,  as  among  the 
Romans,  both  the  joys  and  the  sorrows  of  love  sup- 
plied abundant  and  popular  subjects  for  the  elegy. 
With  the  poets  of  the  latter  nation  this  measure 
obtained  a  peculiar  vogue,  and  was  largely  employed 
in  compositions  of  an  epic  character. 

In  the  musical  accompaniment  of  the  pentameter 
distich,  the  flute,  though  not  to  the  exclusion  of  the 
lyre,  was  the  instrument  preferred,  as  that  which  in 
every  age  was  considered  more  immediately  adapted 
to  mournful  composition.  Accordingly  Mimnermus, 
the  most  popular  author  in  the  plaintive  style  of 
elegiac  poetry,  and  various  other  early  elegiac  poets, 
are  themselves  described  as  skilful  flute-players.^ 
This  preference  may  perhaps  be  considered  as  in  part 
a  consequence  of  the  Ionian  origin  of  the  elegy,  the 
taste  for  wind-instruments  among  the  Greeks  being 
confessedly  derived  from  Asia.  Among  the  Lydians 
of  the  coast  on  which  the  Ionian  colonies  were  esta- 
blished, the  flute  was  extensively  used  in  martial  as 
well  as  mournful  music. ^  Hence,  as  the  earliest  regu- 
lar odes  of  the  elegiac  order,  those  of  the  Ionian  Cal- 
linus,  are  of  a  martial  tendency,  the  preference  of  the 
flute  by  the  Greeks,  as  the  accompaniment  of  the  Elegy, 
the  more  naturally  suggested  itself.     How  far  elegiac 

1  Paiisan.  x.  vii.  3. ;  Echembrot.  ap.  eund. ;  Plut.  de  Mus.  in.  viii. 
alibi ;  Herraesian.  ap.  Athen.  xiii.  p.  597.  sq.;  Suid,  v.  Tvpraios  ;  Theogn. 
(Gaisf.)  532.  1052.  alibi. 

'  Herodot.  i.  xvii. ;  conf.  Athen.  xiv.  p.  627. 


Ch.  I.  §  7.  THE    IAMBUS.  23 

poems  were  at  any  time  regularly  set  to  music,  how 
far  merely  attuned  to  harmonious  chords  like  the 
epic  recitative,  would  probably  depend  much  on  the 
nature  of  their  subject.  The  more  it  partook  of  a 
continuous  narrative  character,  the  more  appropriate 
the  simpler  style  of  accompaniment ;  the  nearer  the 
approach  to  the  pure  lyric,  the  more  artificial  would 
be  the  style  of  music  preferred.  The  poems  of  Mim- 
nermus,  where  the  lyric  character  predominates  more 
than  in  those  of  any  previous  author,  are  stated 
accordingly  to  have  been  set  to  music. ^  To  the  more 
dignified  martial  and  political  addresses  of  Callinus 
or  Tyrtseus,  a  graver  recitative  tone  might  seem 
better  adapted  ;  while  the  elegies  of  Solon,  Periander, 
Xenophanes,  and  Phocylides,  where  the  gnomic  or 
didactic  style  predominated,  are  expressly  said  not  to 
have  been  musically  arranged.^ 

7.  The  invention  of  the  Iambus,  the  rival  of  the  iambic 
Elegy  in  antiquity  and  early  popularity,  was  familiarly  ^°^  ^' 
ascribed  by  the  antients,  as  was  that  of  so  many  other 


'  Plut.  de  Mus.  viTi. ;  Chamfcl.  ap.  Athen.  xiv.  p.  620. 

^  Athen.  xiv.  p.  632.  In  the  older  vocabulary  of  the  poetical  art 
(Solon,  frg.  XVI.  2. ;  Gaisf.  alibi ;  conf.  Herodot.  v.  cxiii.),  and  indeed 
during  every  subsequent  age  of  literature  (conf.  Frank.  Callin.  p.  77.  sqq.), 
the  more  familiar  title  of  poems  of  any  length,  either  in  pentameter  or 
hexameter  measure,  was  firri,  or  "lines;"  obviously  with  reference  to  that 
continuity  of  style  which  distinguishes  each  order  of  composition,  in  its 
relative  degree,  from  the  more  properly  melic  branches  of  lyric  art.  The 
plural  formation  to,  iXeytla,  denoting,  like  iXeyeia,  an  elegiac  poem,  origi- 
nates in  this  usage,  eirrj  being  understood.  The  term  tTr??  was  also  occa- 
sionally applied,  on  similar  grounds,  to  iambic,  trochaic,  and  other 
compositions  marked  by  a  like  continuity  of  metrical  succession  (Bekk. 
Anecd.  p.  751.  ;  Dionys.  Hal.  de  Comp.  verb.  xxvi.).  Hence,  in  later 
times,  the  works  of  Archilochus,  Simonides  the  elder,  Tyrtseus,  and 
Phocylides,  are  said  to  have  been  "  rhapsodised"  occasionally,  along  with 
the  properly  epic  poems  of  Hesiod  and  Homer.  Plat.  Ion.  p.  530,  531. 
Athen.  xiv.  p.  620. 

r  4 


24  EARLY    HISTORY    OF    LYRIC   POETRY.       Book  III. 

metrical  forms,  to  Archilochus.^  In  the  Margites 
however,  a  poem  of  very  early  date,  and  assigned  by 
Aristotle  to  Homer  himself,  iambic  verses  were  inter- 
spersed with  heroic  hexameters.^  It  must  be  pre- 
sumed therefore,  either  that  the  respectable  authors 
who  attribute  the  invention  of  the  former  measure 
to  Archilochus  differed  from  Aristotle  as  to  the 
genuine  antiquity  of  the  Margites,  or  that  the  term 
Invention,  as  here  applied  by  them,  relates  merely  to 
the  regular  poem  of  continuous  trimeters,  to  which, 
in  popular  usage,  the  phrase  Iambic  measure  was 
appropriated. 
Character-  But  the  nature  and  spirit  of  the  Iambus,  still  more 
thrLmbic  perhaps  than  of  the  Elegy,  entitle  us  to  look,  for  its 
rhythm,  f^^.^^  beginnings  at  least,  to  the  spontaneous  effort  of 
the  primitive  Muse  rather  than  to  the  artifice  of  a 
politer  age.  The  component  elements  of  the  elegy 
were  contained  in  the  old  hexameter.  It  might  very 
naturally  occur,  therefore,  to  an  ingenious  master  of 
later  times  to  invent  a  new  form  to  suit  a  new  pur- 
pose, by  curtailing  two  syllables  of  every  alternate 
verse  ;  for  such  in  fact  is  the  whole  amount  of  change 
in  the  mechanical  structure  of  the  measure.  The 
iambus  on  the  other  hand  bears,  perhaps  above  aU 
other  metres,  in  its  very  essence  the  stamp  of  popular 
origin.  It  is,  as  Aristotle  ^  and  other  antient  critics 
have  pointedly  remarked,  the  metre  of  familiar  dis- 
course. Hence,  as  the  same  critics  observe,  the 
frequency  of  its  spontaneous  occurrence  in  prose 
compositions,   the  justice  of  which  remark  may  be 

'  Plut.  de  Mus.  xxvin. ;  Clem.  Alex.  Stromat.  p.  308. ;  Herat,  de  Art. 
Poet.  79. 

"  Supra,  B.  ii.  Ch.  xix.  §  16. 

^  Rhetor,  iii.  i.,  Poetic,  xxiv. ;  conf.  p.  9.  ed.  Grafenh. ;  Hermogen.  de 
Form.  Orat.  ed.  Laur.  p.  263. 


Ch.  I.  §  7.  THE    IAMBUS.  25 

easily  verified  by  the  test  of  experiment.  The  mea- 
sure suggested  itself  instinctively,  therefore,  to  pri- 
mitive genius,  in  any  attempt  to  impart  to  the  poet- 
ical treatment  of  a  subject,  not  so  much  dignity  or 
solemnity,  as  emphatic  pungency  and  smartness. 
This  view,  together  with  the  remote  mythical  anti- 
quity of  the  iambic  measure,  is  supported  in  the  tra- 
dition of  the  Homeric  Hymn  to  Ceres  ^  by  what  is 
probably  the  earliest  extant  vestige  of  the  name,  the 
title  of  the  Eleusinian  nymph  lambe,  who  contributes 
by  her  jibes  and  drolleries  to  dissipate  the  grief  of 
the  goddess  for  her  lost  daughter.  A  popular  cere- 
mony of  the  rites  of  Ceres,  both  at  Eleusis  and  else- 
where, were  sallies  of  bantering  and  raillery,  directed 
by  the  assembled  crowd  against  each  other  or  the 
passers  by,  during  the  procession.^  lambe  is  the  my- 
thical type  both  of  this  ceremony  and  of  the  mode  in 
which  it  was  performed.  A  similar  custom  prevailed 
in  the  kindred  worship  of  Bacchus,  combined  with  a 
still  more  decided  dramatic  ingredient,  which  after- 
wards ripened,  under  the  auspices  of  Thespis  and 
Susarion,  into  the  regular  Attic  tragedy  and  comedy. 
So  naturally  indeed,  in  the  opinion  of  the  antient 
critics,  did  the  iambic  measure  suggest  itself  as  the 
weapon  of  satirical  attack,  that  both  Horace  and 
Ovid  suppose  its  imputed  invention  by  Archilochus 
to  have  been  for  the  special  convenience  of  his  biting 
pasquinades.^ 

1  Verse  195. ;  conf.  Gaisf.  Heph.  p.  157.  sq. ;  Procl.  Chrestom.  p.  379. 
Gaisf. ;  Welck.  Archilochos,  Kl.  Schr.  vol.  i.  p.  78.  The  words  lambe, 
Iambus,  are  derived  apparently  from  Idirra)  (ld$a},  ld/n^<o),  to  provoke, 
harass,  rail ;  by  the  same  analogy  as  \dfxl3u  or  Kafx^dvu,  from  ATJ-n-Toi, 
\dPa>. 

^  Apollodorus,  i.  v.  3. ;  conf.  Heyn.  Obs.  ad  loc. ;  Aristoph.  Ran.  384. 
sqq. ;  Bentl.  Opuscc.  p.  312. 

^  Liebel,  fragm.  Ai'chil.  p.  26. 


26  EARLY    HISTORY    OF    LYRIC    POETRY.       Book  III. 

Early  cui-  In  its  further  cultivation  however  the  iambus,  or 
rather  the  iambic  trimeter,  for  in  that  form  alone  is 
its  full  excellence  displayed,  not  only  embraces,  like 
the  elegy,  the  treatment  of  every  variety  of  subject, 
but  as  possessing,  in  a  degree  little  short  of  the  hex- 
ameter, the  principle  of  continuity  which  is  wanting 
in  the  elegy,  is  qualified  to  treat  those  subjects  with 
similar,  if  not  the  same,  ease,  amplitude,  and  dig- 
nity as  the  hexameter  itself.  The  essential  property 
of  the  iambic  foot,  consisting  of  one  short  and  one 
long  syllable,  so  as  to  commence  with  the  weaker  and 
terminate  smartly  in  the  stronger  element,  may  be  de- 
fined as  a  union  of  simplicity  and  emphasis.  These 
primary  elements  again,  through  the  ordinary  expe- 
dients of  Greek  metrical  art,  solution,  common  syllable, 
and  the  like,  admit,  without  any  actual  violation  of 
their  own  fundamental  attributes,  the  variety  of  eifect 
derivable  from  an  interspersion  of  trochaic,  dactylic, 
spondaic,  or  anapaestic  forms.  Still  however  the  ex- 
cellence of  the  measure,  even  in  its  complete  adapta- 
tion to  the  drama,  shines  forth  less  in  the  flowing 
discourse  or  narrative,  than  in  its  own  original  proper 
class  of  subjects,  lively  conversation,  pungent  satire, 
or  smart  repartee.  An  oration  of  ^schylus,  with  all 
its  rhetorical  pomp  and  elevation,  falls  far  short  in 
true  poetical  grandeur  of  the  higher  eloquence  of  the 
Iliad.  The  perfection  of  iambic  versification  is  the 
text  of  Aristophanes,  where  it  will  ever  remain  un- 
surpassed and  unrivalled  in  variety  and  brilliancy  of 
dramatic  effect. 

The  honour  of  the  first  invention,  or  in  other 
words  higher  cultivation,  of  the  iambic  measure, 
while  usually  awarded  to  Archilochus,  was  disputed 
in  some  quarters  in  favour  of  the  elder  Simonides, 
author  of  the  most  antient   extant  iambic  poem  of 


Ch.  I.  §  7.  THE    IAMBUS.  27 

any  considerable  length.  The  point  is  of  little  im- 
portance as  affecting  either  the  history  of  this  style 
of  composition,  or  the  credit  of  the  two  poets,  both 
having  adapted  it  to  satirical  purposes,  and  having 
been  contemporary  with  each  other.  If  we  except 
these  two  authors  and  Solon,  who  was  partial  to  the 
iambic  trimeter,  the  measure  seems  to  have  been  com- 
paratively little  popular  during  this  period,  owing, 
perhaps,  to  its  being  less  well  adapted  than  other 
rhythmical  forms  to  the  melic  or  pure  lyric  order 
of  performance,  now  so  greatly  in  the  ascendant. 
The  iambic  compositions  of  Solon,  consisting  chiefly 
of  addresses  to  the  Athenian  public  in  vindication  of 
his  own  political  conduct,  or  reflecting  upon  that  of 
his  fellow-citizens,  appear  from  the  extant  specimens 
to  have  partaken  at  times  much  of  the  character  of 
speeches  in  the  mouth  of  a  hero  of  Euripides,  afford- 
ing a  foretaste,  as  it  were,  of  the  style  of  the  tragic 
dialogue. 

In  the  arrangement  of  the  iambic  trimeter  to  music, 
the  same  general  rule  seems  to  have  been  observed  as 
in  the  case  of  the  elegy.  Where  the  melic  element 
prevailed,  as  in  the  jocund  sallies  of  festive  revelry,  a 
properly  musical  accompaniment  might  be  preferred; 
where  the  composition  was  of  a  graver  character  or 
more  continuous  tenor,  the  simple  recitative  would 
suffice.  This  view  seems  in  some  measure  confirmed 
by  the  statement  of  Plutarch,  that  the  iambic  odes 
of  Archilochus,  the  standard  master  of  this  branch  of 
art,  were  partly  sung  partly  recited  to  the  harp, 
and  that  their  author  had  himself  prescribed  rules  for 
the  allotment  to  each  of  its  appropriate  style  of  ac- 
companiment.^ 

'   Plutarch,  de  Mus.  xxviii. ;  conf.  Lucian.  de  Saltu,  xxvii. 


28  EARLY    HISTORY    OF    LYRIC    POETRY.       Book  III. 

Meiic  8.  The  two  branches  of  composition  above  treated, 

lyric  com-  thc  clegiac  and  iambic,  while  both  apparently  of 
position,  Ionian  origin,  form,  as  already  observed,  an  inter- 
mediate stage  between  the  epic  or  heroic  and  the 
purely  lyric  style,  and  might  thus  be  conjointly 
characterised  as  the  Epico-lyric,  in  contradistinction 
to  the  melic  or  choral  orders  of  poetry,  where  a  more 
vital  connexion  with  the  sister  art  of  music  was 
maintained.  The  precocity  of  Ionian  inventive  ge- 
nius is,  however,  similarly  exemplified  in  these  more 
refined  and  complicated  styles  of  lyric  performance, 
to  which  attention  will  now  more  immediately  be 
directed.  Although  the  strictly  musical  element  of 
lyric  poetry  appears  to  be  chiefly  of  ^olian  origin, 
a  priority  in  respect  to  the  culture  and  extension 
of  its  literary  element  is,  by  a  preponderance  of 
antient  testimony  ^,  awarded  to  the  same  Ionian 
Archilochus  so  distinguished  by  his  services  in  ex- 
tending and  adorning  the  elegiac  and  iambic  branches 
of  art.  Certain  it  is,  that  in  the  works  of  this  re- 
markable man  a  number  even  of  the  more  delicate 
varieties  of  melic  rhythm  appear  in  an  advanced 
state  of  maturity.  Among  these  the  Trochaic,  while 
capable  in  its  lighter  combinations  of  the  liveliest 
musical  effect,  may,  in  its  more  prolonged  tetrameter 
form,  be  classed  along  with  the  elegy  and  iambic 
trimeter,  as  another  intermediate  stage  between  the 
epic  and  lyric  styles.  It  offers  in  fact  a  counterpart 
to  the  iambic  trimeter,  as  well  in  the  equal  division  and 
regular  progression  of  its  numbers,  and  its  consequent, 
though  less  complete,  adaptation  to  continuous  re- 
cital, as  in  the  general  spirit  of  its  poetical  expres- 
sion.    The  iambic  foot,  rising  from  the  short  to  the 

1  See  the  authorities  collected  by  Liebel,  fragm.  Archilochi,  p.  27.  sqq. 


Ch.  I.  §  8.        MELIC    ORDERS    OF    COMPOSITION.  29 

long  syllable,  possesses  a  vigour  and  emphasis  fa- 
vourable to  smart  invective  or  keen  expostulation  ; 
the  trochee,  subsiding  from  the  long  to  the  short,  has 
a  more  rapid  but  comparatively  smooth  and  equa- 
ble progression,  suited  rather  to  persuasive  appeal, 
querulous  complaint,  or  even  dignified  declamation.^ 
Hence  its  names  of  Trochteus,  the  runner,  or  Cho- 
rasus,  the  dancer,  from  its  adaptation  to  the  more 
airy  motions  of  the  dance.  The  Anapaest,  the  converse 
of  the  dactyl,  and  another  imputed  discovery  of  Archi- 
lochus,  is  an  extension  of  the  time  and  rhythm  of  the 
iambus,  enhancing  the  rhetorical  power  of  that  mea- 
sure from  emphasis  to  impetuosity,  but  forfeiting 
much  of  its  narrative  or  conversational  spirit.  To 
the  same  poet  were  also  ascribed  the  Choriambic 
and  Paeonic,  with  various  more  complicated  metres, 
arising  from  the  combination  of  those  already  de- 
scribed with  each  other  or  with  the  elementary  forms 
in  which  they  originated,  and  adapted  to  correspond- 
ing varieties  of  poetical  expression. ^ 

The  term  Invention,  as  applied  to  the  earliest 
ascertained  use  of  these  varied  metres,  may  in  some 
cases  safely  be  taken  in  a  literal  sense.  Not  only 
were  many  of  them  dependant  on  a  parallel  improve- 
ment of  the  art  of  nmsic,  but  their  arrangement 
seems  to  imply  a  more  forward  stage  of  literary  cul- 
ture, and  a  more  copious  stock  of  technical  resources 
than  was  required  for  the  earlier  recitative  branches 
of  composition.  Still  however  it  is  not  likely  that 
any  art,  in  the  ordinary  course  of  things,  can  have 
reached  at  a  single  step  the  stage  in  which  lyric 
rhythm  appears  in  the  works  of  Archilochus.     It  may 

'  Hermogen.  de  Form.  Orat.  ii.  p.  383.  ed.  Laurent. 
-  Liebel,  op.  cit   p.  30.  sqq. 


30  EARLY    HISTORY    OF    LYRIC    POETRY.       Book  III. 

reasonably,  with  all  respect  for  the  brilliant  genius  of 
that  author,  be  assumed  in  his  case,  as  in  that  of 
Homer  and  the  epopee,  that  many  zealous  labourers 
had  preceded  him  in  the  same  field,  but  that  their 
productions,  whether  from  their  own  slender  claims 
to  permanent  popularity,  or  from  the  slowness  of  the 
public  to  appreciate  those  claims,  had  not  been  pre- 
served. There  can,  indeed,  be  little  doubt  that  even 
in  the  very  infancy  of  society,  among  all  poetically 
gifted  nations,  popular  songs  admitted  of  a  variety  of 
metrical  forms  suited  to  their  variety  of  subject ;  and 
that  in  Greece,  consequently,  even  in  the  days  of 
Homer,  there  must  have  existed  for  the  lighter  orders 
of  composition  livelier  systems  of  versification  than 
the  dactylic  hexameter,  or  even  the  elegy  and  iambus. 
The  same  rule  holds  good  in  modern  literature.  Many 
of  the  lyric  stanzas  which  now  charm  in  the  page  of 
Dryden  or  Gray,  existed  in  substance  in  the  popular 
ballad  minstrelsy,  long  before  the  more  dignified  epic 
measure  was  improved  by  Chaucer,  or  carried  to 
perfection  by  Milton.  In  every  age  however  the 
nobler  orders  of  poetry,  as  more  immediately  con- 
nected with  objects  of  public  or  national  interest, 
naturally  take  precedence,  in  polite  cultivation,  of 
those  of  a  lighter  more  familiar  character  ;  and  it  is 
the  epoch  of  that  cultivation  which,  in  any  such  case, 
can  alone  or  chiefly  supply  tangible  material  for  cri- 
tical commentary. 
Origin  9.  It  has  already  been  remarked,  that  while  any 

poeu^!*^  technical  analysis  of  the  Greek  art  of  music  would 
here  be  out  of  place,  the  elementary  history  of  mu- 
sical composition  must  enter  to  a  greater  or  less  de- 
gree into  the  history  of  Greek  lyric  poetry,  owing  to 
the  vital  connexion  between  the  two  arts,  especially 


The  Nome. 


Ch.  r.  §9.  POET-MUSICIANS.       THE   NOME.  31 

during  their  earlier  stages.  All  the  authentic  no- 
tices of  the  origin  and  early  progress  of  the  more 
refined  branches  of  lyric  composition  revolve,  in  fact, 
around  the  names  and  performances  of  the  primitive 
improvers  of  the  science  of  music.  To  the  efforts  of 
these  personages  consequently,  in  the  joint  field  of 
invention,  a  reasonable  share  of  the  present  chapter 
will  be  allotted.  With  the  notices  of  their  labours 
will  also  be  combined  the  few  particulars  of  their 
personal  history  which  have  been  recorded.  This 
arrangement  will  here  be  preferable,  on  various  ac- 
counts, to  that  of  reserving  such  biographical  details 
for  separate  treatment;  the  method  which,  for  equally 
valid  reasons,  has  been  adopted  in  regard  to  contem- 
porary authors  of  the  strictly  poetical  order.  Scarcely 
one  of  those  celebrated  patriarchs  of  the  art  of  music, 
while  all  were  probably  to  a  certain  extent  poets, 
seems  to  have  possessed  claims  to  higher  distinction 
on  the  ground  of  his  poetical,  apart  from  his  musical 
talents.^  Nor,  indeed,  is  there  any  one  of  them  of 
whose  personal  affairs  the  extant  notices  are  such 
as  to  supply  material  for  a  separate  memoir. 

The  views  of  the  leading  antient  authorities  relative 
to  the  early  progress  of  the  combined  arts  have  been 
preserved  in  the  Treatise  on  Music  which  passes  cur- 
rent under  the  name  of  Plutarch.  This  tract  is  more 
remarkable  for  learning  than  method  or  precision. 
The  object  of  its  author  was  less  to  promulgate  any 
definite  system  of  his  own,  than  to  embody  an  abstract 
of  the  doctrines  of  the  older  writers  on  the  subject. 
His  authorities,  accordingly,  while  agreeing  generally 
in  fundamental  matters,  are  often  much  at  variance 

'  Of  Terpander  alone  have  any  fragments,  amounting  to  but  eight 
verses,  been  preserved. 


32  EARLY    HISTORY    OF    LYRIC    POETRY.       Book  III. 

in  details ;  nor  has  any  serious  effort  been  made  by 
the  compiler  to  reconcile  their  discrepancies.  The 
greater  indulgence  therefore  is  due  to  the  following 
attempt,  by  a  collation  of  his  best  accredited  and 
most  consistent  data,  to  place  before  the  reader,  in  as 
distinct  a  form  as  the  case  will  admit,  the  substance 
of  the  information  which  they  supply.^ 

The  clearest  insight  into  the  earlier  stages  of  pure 
melic  art  is  afforded  by  the  extant  notices  of  that  pri- 
mitive order  of  poetico-musical  performance  called 
Nome.  This  term,  by  reference  to  its  etymology, 
denotes  any  thing  "  set  apart "  or  "  appropriated." 
In  its  application  to  the  arts  of  music  or  poetry  it  ad- 
mits of  a  twofold  interpretation,  as  signifying  either 
a  poem  or  ode  set  to  a  musical  air,  or  a  piece  of 
music  arranged  to  the  words  of  a  poetical  text.^ 
The  foundation  of  Plutarch's  treatise  is  a  distinction 
between  the  recitative  and  the  lyric  element  in  the 
works  of  the  old  epic  poets.  Under  the  head  of  Lyric 
he  classes  the  hymn,  the  threnus  or  lament,  the  cho- 
rus, the  convivial  song;  illustrating  his  doctrine  by 
the  Hymn  of  Mars  and  Venus,  and  other  parallel 
portions  of  Homer's  poems.^  Such  compositions,  he 
remarks,  were  not  merely  chanted  or  recited,  like 
the  ordinary  epic  narrative,  at  the  free  discretion  of 
the  poet,  but  were  arranged  to  a  nome  or  piece  of 
music  specially  adapted  to  their  respective  characters. 
The  existence  of  some  such  distinction  seems,  indeed, 

^  The  reader  is  further  referred  to  the  ingenious  commentary  of 
Burette,  in  the  10th  vol.  of  the  Mem.  de  I'Acad.  des  Inscr. 

"^  In  this  primitive  sense  the  term  seems  to  be  used  in  the  Homeric 
hymn  to  Apoll.  Del.  20.  v6i).oi  ^■^Q 'i  conf.  Aristoph.  Aves,  110.,  vSfiovs 
UpSiv  VHV03V ;  Suid.  V.  v6fxos ;  Aristot.  Probl.  xix.  ;  Clem.  Alex.  Str.  i. 
p.  309. 

^  HI.  sq.  ed.  Tauchnitz. 


Cir.  I.  §9.  AULODIC    NOMRS.       OLYMPUS.  33 

inherent  in  the  first  principles  of  art.  It  can  hardlj'' 
be  supposed  that  the  music  of  the  brilliant  chorus  of 
Phaeacian  youths,  of  the  joyous  pa3an  to  Apollo  Chry- 
seus,  or  the  song  of  the  Muses  in  Olympus,  "  respond- 
in  o-  to  each  other  with  their  beautiful  voices  \"  was 
but  the  same  comparatively  monotonous  succession  of 
citharoedic  chords  used  by  the  epic  minstrel  in  his 
ordinary  narrative. 

At  a  period  however,  when  the  lyre  had  but  four  Auiodk- 
strings,  and  wind  instruments  were  comparatively  oiympus. 
little  popular  in  Greece,  any  such  instrumental  ac- 
companiment must  have  been  at  the  best  but  meagre. 
These  early  citharcedic  nomes  therefore,  are  con- 
sistently described  as  first  permanently  arranged 
and  reduced  to  system  on  the  introduction  of  the 
seven-stringed  lyre  by  the  celebrated  master  Terpan- 
der.^  But  previously  to  his  improvements,  a  wider 
compass  and  nobler  character  had  already  been  im- 
parted to  the  nomic  order  of  composition,  through 
the  medium  of  the  flute  or  clarionet^,  by  the  Phrygian 
musician  Olympus.  From  this  composer  dates  also 
the  extension  among  the  Greeks  of  a  taste  for  the 
aulodic  branch  of  music.  Wind  instruments  were 
obviously  better  qualified  than  the  primitive  lyre,  by 
their  greater  flexibility,  compass,  and  sonorous  power, 
to  give  eflect  to  a  complicated  variety  of  metrical 
forms,  or  to  that  lively  expression  of  mental  emo- 
tion which  forms  a  distinguishing  characteristic  of 
lyric  poetry.  Olympus  accordingly  is  described  as 
the  founder,  that  is,  the  first  systematic  imj) rover 
of  the  musical  or  "  nomic "  element  of  Greek  lyric 

1  Od.  viii.  260. ;  II.  I.  472.  604. 

-  Plut.  de  jMus.  III.;  conf.  Procl.  Chrest.  Gaisf.  p.  382. 
^  On  the  Greek  wind  insti'uments,  see  Thiersch,  Einleit.  zu  Pindar, 
p.  54.  sq. 

VOL.  III.  D 


3-4  EAKLY    HISTORY    OF    LYRIC    I'OETRY.      Book  III. 

art^,  the  more  advanced  cultivation  of  which  took 
place  in  connexion  Avith  the  heptachord  lyre,  as 
the  more  chaste  and  purely  Hellenic  instrument. 
All  authorities  seem  to  agree  that  aulodic  music, 
although  in  its  ruder  rustic  form  the  most  antient 
])robably  in  every  country,  was  first  scientifically 
cultivated  (in  popular  phraseology,  invented)  in 
Asia.^  The  mythical  contests  of  Apollo,  the  god  of 
the  lyre,  with  Marsyas^  and  other  patrons  of  the 
flute,  shadow  forth  the  struggles  of  the  two  styles 
for  the  ascendant.  The  lyre  represents  among  the 
antients  the  more  chaste  and  elegant  order  of  music ; 
the  flute,  that  of  a  more  turbulent  and  exciting  cha- 
racter, expressive  equally  of  morbid  melancholy,  joy- 
ous revelry,  or  phrensied  passion.  Hence  the  former 
instrument  was  preferred  by  Apollo,  the  patron  of  all 
the  more  noble  and  refined  branches  of  Hellenic  art ; 
the  latter  by  Bacchus  and  his  worshippers,  as  best 
adapted  to  their  enthusiastic  orgies.^  Herein,  too,  lies 
the  historical  import  of  the  long  rivalry  between  the 
festive  solemnities  of  the  two  gods.  Apollo  however 
became  reconciled  to  the  flute.     Alcman  and  Corinna 

'  Plut.  de  ]M.  V.  VII.  XI.  XXIX.  ^  ttju  apxv''  '''V^  'EWrii/iKrjs  t€  koI  vofj.iKijs 
^o\j(Ji)s  aTroSiOoaffi. 

2  Plut.  de  M.  V.  VII. ;  Athen.  xiv.  p.  624. ;  Eur.  Iph.  Aul.  578.,  Bacch. 
127. ;  Marm.  Par.  Epoch  x. ;  Suidas,  v.  "OKv/j^ttos.  The  popular  citations 
however,  of  Homer,  as  an  authority  for  this  view,  are  fallacious.  Homer 
represents  both  Greeks  and  Asiatics  as  equally  familiar  with  the  lyre  and 
the  flute,  each  on  its  proper  occasion.  (11.  in.  54.,  ix.  188.,  xiii.  731.,  x. 
13.,  xviii.  495.)  Wind  instruments  had  this  disadvantage,  that  the  poet 
could  not  accompany  his  own  compositions.  Every  "aulodic"  minstrel 
required  an  assistant.  Nanno  accordingly,  the  mistress  of  Mimnermus, 
was  his  favourite  flute-player. 

*  Pausan.  ii.  xxii.  9. ;  ApoUod.  i.  Iv.  2. ;  conf.  Miill.  Dor.  vol.  i. 
p.  344. ;  Welck.  d.  Elegos,  p.  64.  sq. 

^  Aristot.  Polit.  vni.  vii. ;  Pratin.  ap.  Athen.  xiv.  617. ;  conf.  Hom.  II. 
X.  13.,  xviii.  493.;  Plato  de  Legg.  p.  700.,  De  Rep.  in.  p.  398.  sqq. ; 
Eurip.  Bacch.  127.;  Pausan.  x.  vii.  3. 


Cii.  I.  §  9.  AULODIC    NOMES.       OLYMPUS.  35 

describe  him  as  himself  a  flute-player.^  The  bond  of 
amity  was  cemented  by  the  union  of  the  worship  and 
of  the  favourite  instruments  of  each  deity  in  the 
Pythian  sanctuary. - 

To  return,  however,  from  the  history  of  the  instru- 
ments to  that  of  the  art  which  they  contributed  to 
adorn,  Olympus,  the  earliest  accredited  author  of 
these  refinements  of  Greek  lyric  style,  must  not  be 
confounded  with  another  Olympus,  who,  as  a  mythical 
reflex  of  the  fame  acquired  by  his  successor,  occupies 
a  place  in  Gr^eco-Asiatic  legend,  similar  to  that  of  Am- 
phion,  Orpheus,  or  Musa3us,  in  the  fabulous  records 
of  Greece.^  The  historical  reality  of  the  younger 
Olympus,  together  with  the  priority  and  extent  of 
his  influence  on  Greek  musical  science,  is  attested 
by  numerous  and  competent  authors.'*  Concerning 
his  age,  the  only  specific  account  places  him  towards 
the  close  of  the  eighth  century  b.  c,  coeval  with 
Midas,  king  of  Phrygia,  whose  name,  like  his  own 
and  various  others  celebrated  by  the  Greeks  in  con- 
nexion with  that  country,  denotes  both  a  fabulous 
hero  and  a  person  of  real  note  in  national  history. 
The  compositions  of  Olympus  are  frequently  men- 
tioned, by  the  highest  authorities  in  such  matters, 
as  still  extant  and  greatly  esteemed  in  the  best 
ages  of  Greek  art.^  Among  his  imputed  inven- 
tions is  the  Enharmonic  Scale  of  Intervals,  the  ac- 

'  Ap.  Plut.  de  M.  XIV.  ^  Pausan.  ii.  xxii.  9. 

2  He  appears  accordingly,  in  these  legends,  as  a  contemporary  and  as- 
sociate of  Marsyas,  Silenns,  the  Idaei  Dactyl!,  and  other  fabulous  worthies 
of  his  native  district.  lie  is  also  occasionally  quoted,  as  may  be  sup- 
posed, as  the  author  of  various  inventions  or  improvements  ascribed 
in  more  critical  quarters  to  the  real  musician  of  the  name.  See  Clint. 
Fast.  Hell.  vol.  i.  p.  344.  sqq. 

•*  Ap.  Clint.  Fast.  Hell.  loc.  cit.  *  Clint,  loc.  cit. 

d2 


36  EARLY    IlIbTORY    OF    LYRIC    POETRY.       Book  III. 

knowleclg-ed  foundation  of  a  higher  and  nobler  style 
of  Greek  music,  chiefly  preferred  in  the  accompani- 
ment of  hymns  to  the  gods.^  As  there  is  no  authority 
for  Olympus  ever  having  used  stringed  instruments, 
this  notice  supplies  an  additional  evidence  that  the 
higher  refinements  of  antient  musical  art  were  first 
developed  by  Asiatic  masters  in  connexion  with  the 
flute,  and  subsequently  adapted  to  the  heptachord 
Ivre  by  Terpander.^  The  trochaic  order  of  musical 
rhythm  used  in  the  festivals  of  Cybele,  besides  seve- 
ral others  popular  in  later  times,  was  also  considered 
as  an  invention  of  Olympus.^  This  Phrygian  form 
of  trochaic  rliythm  is  understood  ^  to  be  the  same  as 
the  galliambic,  the  powerful  effect  of  which  may  be 
appreciated  from  the  spirited  ode  of  Catullus^,  com- 

Super  alta  vectus  Atys  celeri  rate  maria." 

Among  the  more  remarkable  compositions  of 
Olympus  extant  in  later  times  were  nomes  to 
Apollo,  Mars,  and  Minerva",  the  latter  of  which  is 
cited  by  Pindar.  One  of  those  to  Apollo  was  called, 
from  its  compass  and  variety  of  parts,  the  Poly- 
cephalic,  or  many-headed  Nome."  Another  of  great 
celebrity  was  a  processional  nome  of  Cybele,  hence 
called  the  Harmatian  Nome^  of  the  character  of 
which  some  notion  may  be  formed  from  the  lament 
uttered  by  the  Phrygian  slave  in  the  Orestes  of 
Euripides.^  That  impetuous  outpouring  of  excited 
feeling,  in  broken  irregular  measure,  is  described  by 

^  Plut.  (le  M.  VII.  XI.  XXIX. ;  conf.  Burette,  Mem.  de  I'Acad.  des  Inscr. 
vol.  X.  p.  279. ;  Thiersch,  Einleit.  zu  Find.  p.  37.  sq. 

"  Appendix  A.  *  Plut.  de  M.  xxix. 

^  HephEEst.  p.  67.  sq.  Gaisf.  ;  conf.  Herra.  Doctr.  R.  Metr.  p.  504.  sqq. 
^  Carni.  lxiii.  ^  Plut.  xxix.  xxxiii.  '  Plut.  de  Mus.  vii. 

8  Phit.  de  M.  VII.;  conf.  Etyni.  Mag.  v.  'kpnamov.  ^   1380.  sqq. 


Ch.  I.  §  9.  AULODIO    NOMES.       OLY^MPUS.  37 

the  coinplainer  himself  as  the  "  liarinatian  Song."  ' 
Aristophanes^  also  alludes  to  auloclic  nomcs  of  Olym- 
pus, of  a  simihxrly  mournful  nature,  as  popular  at 
Athens.  All  authorities  bear  testimony  to  the  ex- 
cellence of  his  compositions,  as  combining  with 
passionate  fervour  great  purity  and  simplicity  of 
character.^ 

The  above  notices  seem  to  refer  almost  exclusively 
to  the  musical  element  of  the  nomes  of  Olympus ; 
nor  is  there  any  distinct  trace  of  a  poetical  text 
having  passed  current  at  any  period  under  his  name. 
The  ambiguity,  however,  incident  in  all  languages  to 
the  technical  phraseology  of  the  two  branches  of  art, 
and  especially  among  the  Greeks,  owing  to  the  peculiar 
closeness  of  the  connexion  between  the  two  in  the 
practice  of  that  nation,  renders  it  often  difficult  or 
impossible  to  distinguish  whether  in  such  notices  allu- 
sion be  made  to  poetical  or  purely  musical  composi- 
tion. The  term  Nome  appears,  indeed,  at  all  periods 
to  have  borne  a  more  immediate  reference  to  the 
music  or  air,  than  the  poetry  or  words  of  a  song.  In 
later  times  it  came  to  be  restricted,  in  a  proper 
sense,  to  a  certain  graver  more  dignified  order  of 
musical  composition,  both  vocal  and  instrumental, 
performed  in  honour  chiefly  of  the  greater  gods,  and 
on  high  and  solemn  occasions.^ 

The  only  two  musicians  specially  described  as  dis- 
ciples of  Olympus  are  Hierax  of  Argos^,  and  Crates, 

■  Plutarch  mentions  also  the  adaptation  of  this  nome  to  martial  com- 
positions ;  and  cites  an  example  of  the  powerful  effect  of  its  performance 
in  rousing  the  military  ardour  of  Alexander.  De  Alex.  M.  Fort.  orat.  ii. 
p.  335.  2  Equit.  9. 

3  See  especially  Plato,  Sympos.  p. '21ii.;  Aristot.  Polit.  viii.  v.  ;  conf. 
Clint.  F.  H.  p.  344.  sq. 

*  Miiller,  Dor.  i.  349. ;  conf  Boeckh,  de  Metr.  Pind.  p.  182.  sq. 

5   Plut.  de  M.  XXVI.;  conf.  Jull.  Poll.  iv.  x.  79. 

u  3 


38  EARLY    HISTORY    OF   LYRIC    POETRY.       Book  III. 

of  uncertain  birthplace.  To  Crates  some  ascribed 
the  celebrated  Polycephalic  Nome  usually  attributed 
to  his  master.^ 
citharaniic  jQ,  Nearly  cocval  with  Olvmpus  was  Terpander, 
Terpander.  by  wliom  wcrc  cxtcnded  to  the  citharoBdic  branch  of 
lyric  composition  the  same  services  for  Avhich  the 
aulodic  branch  was  indebted  to  Olympus.  This  cele- 
brated musician  was  a  native  of  Lesbos,  then  the 
most  distinguished  seat  of  the  ^olo-Asiatic  colonies. 
In  his  person,  therefore,  vEolian  genius  asserts  the 
same  priority  and  the  same  preeminence  in  the  art  of 
music  which  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  had  secured  for  it 
in  that  of  poetry.  The  chief  seat,  however,  of  his  pro- 
fessional activity  was  Lacedasmon,  the  centre  of  Dorian 
power  and  Dorian  national  feeling.  His  high  repu- 
tation is  figured  in  the  tradition^  of  his  descent  from 
Homer  according  to  some  accounts,  from  Hesiod 
accordinof  to  others.  In  the  same  fable  he  inherits 
the  lyre  of  Orpheus,  borne  on  the  waves  from  the 
shores  of  ^olian  Greece  to  those  of  iEolian  Asia, 
where  it  was  discovered  and  preserved  by  fishermen 
for  his  use.  Other  organs  of  the  popular  tradition 
make  him  a  contemporary  of  Lycurgus  ;  on  the  prin- 
ciple common  with  classical  antiquaries,  of  connecting 
the  origin  of  all  the  chief  institutions  of  Sparta,  among 
which  was  the  musical  system  established  by  Ter- 
pander, with  the  name  of  her  great  lawgiver.  More 
distinct  and  satisfactory  is  the  notice  of  Hellanicus, 
who  makes  Terpander  the  first  victor  in  the  great 
musical  festival  of  the  Carnea,  instituted  under  his 
own  direction  in  the  year  67G  b.c.^    He  may  thus  be 

1  Plut.  de  M.  vn.  ^  Suid.  v.  Tepw. 

^  Hellanicus  et  Sosibius  ap.  Athen.  xiv.  p.  635.  ;  conf.  Plut.  de  Mus. 
IX.;  Clint.  Fast.  Hell.  vol.  i.  pp.  187.  201.  The  notice  of  the  Parian 
Chronicle,   which   brings  down   the   first  promulgation  of  Terpander's 


Cii.  I.  §  10.       CITUARCEOIC    NOMES.       TEIU'ANDEU.  39 

considered  as  a  generation  younger  than  Olympus, 
and  nearly  coeval  with  Archilochus.  Sparta  was,  at 
this  early  period,  the  state  in  which  musical  art  was 
cultivated  with  the  greatest  zeaL  Her  citizens  were 
in  the  habit  of  engaging  the  services  of  the  ablest 
professors  from  every  part  of  Hellas.  Here  accord- 
ingly the  leading  improvements  of  Terpander  were 
matured  and  promulgated. 

Terpander's  connexion  with  Lacedaemon  is  said  to 
have  originated  in  an  invitation  by  the  Spartan  rulers 
to  visit  their  city  during  a  period  of  intestine  dis- 
cord. This  step  was  taken  by  tliem  in  obedience  to 
an  injunction  of  the  Delpliic  priestess,  by  whom  the 
Lesbian  musician  had  been  pointed  out  as  the  des- 
tined means  of  reconciling  the  hostile  factions.  Sucli 
is  said  to  have  been  the  effect  of  his  music  on  those 
reputed  men  of  iron,  that  the  contending  parties,  dis- 
solved in  tears,  embraced  each  other,  and  buried  all 
previous  differences  in  oblivion.^  Fixing  his  abode 
in  the  city,  he  fulfilled  during  the  remainder  of  his 
life  the  functions  of  state  poet  and  musician,  amid 

new  system  of  music  at  Sparta  as  late  as  644  b.c,  is  strangely  at  variance 
with  the  account  of  his  triumph  in  the  Spartan  Carnea  in  the  first  year  of 
their  institution,  thirty  years  before.  It  is  certainly  far  more  probable 
that  the  introduction  of  his  improvements  should  have  been,  if  not  ante- 
rior to,  simultaneous  at  least  with  the  institution,  under  his  own  auspices, 
of  the  national  festival  where  they  were  publicly  sanctioned  and  reduced 
to  practice.  See  Appendix  B,  Nor  is  thei'e  the  least  notice  of  any  fun- 
damental change  in  the  Spartan  system  of  music  after  the  institution  of 
the  Carnea.  The  date  of  the  chi-onicle  is  also,  it  need  hai-dly  be  added, 
repugnant  to  the  received  tradition,  which  describes  the  revolution 
efi'ected  by  Terpander  in  the  musical  art  and  taste  of  Lacedaemon  as 
simultaneous  with  his  first  settlement  in  the  country,  not  as  a  work  of 
his  old  age,  after  more  than  thirty  years'  service  as  state  musician. 

1  Stesich.  ap.  Philodam.  de  Mus.  Yoll.  Hercul.  i.  p.  81.  91.  sq. ;  Sappho, 
frg.  Lii.  Gaisf,  lxix.  Neue ;  Aristot.  ap.  Eustath.  ad  II.  ix.  129. ;  Diod. 
Sicul.  ap.  Tzetz.  Chil.  i.  16.;  Plut.  de  Mus.  xlii.  ;  Gaisf.  Parcem.  Gr. 
p.  74.  341.  ;   Apostol.  v.  juera  AeV/iiof  cfSSv. 

D    4 


40  EARLY    IIISTOUY    OF    LYIUC    POETRY.       Book  III. 

uiiiversiil  admiration  and  esteem.  After  his  death  his 
memory  was  revered,  and  his  compositions  esteemed 
as  models  to  all  succeeding  professors  of  citharoedic 
art.  His  sy.^tem  continued  to  flourish,  chiefly  under 
Lesbian  masters,  both  at  Laceda3mon  and  elsewhere, 
up  to  the  time  of  his  countryman  Fhrynis\  whose  in- 
novations, about  the  period  of  the  Persian  war,  were 
considered  as  corruptions  of  the  "  genuine  Hellenic 
music.""  Terpander,  besides  his  victory  in  the  Carnea, 
conquered  four  times  in  the  Pythian  festival^,  at  that 
time  apparently  the  only  one  of  the  great  Panhelienic 
solemnities  of  which  competitions  in  lyric  poetry 
formed  a  part. 

Great  as  was  Terpander's  fame  as  an  original  genius, 
his  merits  would  yet  appear,  from  the  more  authentic 
notices,  to  have  consisted  less  in  actual  discovery, 
than  in  the  adaptation  to  Greek  tastes  and  habits  of 
refinements  of  art  already  familiar  to  the  cultivated 
nations  of  Asia.  The  most  celebrated  novelty  for 
which  he  obtained  credit  was  the  invention  of  the 
seven-stringed  lyre'*,  by  the  addition  of  three  chords 
to  the  old  tetrachord  instrument.  This  however 
cannot  be  considered,  nor  has  it  been  so  understood 
by  the  more  critical  even  of  his  own  countrj^men,  as 
indicatino;  the  first  actual  construction  of  a  strino-ed 
instrument  with  the  compass  of  an  octave.  There 
can  be  no  doubt  that  the  more  civilised  nations  of 
Asia  possessed,  before  his  time,  instruments  of  equal 
or  greater  compass  ;  and  Terpander  is  stated,  on  no 
less  authority  than  that  of  Pindar,  to  have  founded 

^  Plut.  de  Mus.  VI. 

-  Aristoph.  Nub.  971. ;  Procl.  Chrestom.  p.  382.  Gaisf.;  Suld.  et  Hesych. 
V.  Aeo'/Sios  (f!5os. 

3  Plut.  de  Uus.  IV. 

*  Fragm.  Terpand.  i.  ap.  Scbneldewin,  Del.  Poes.  Gr.  p.  237.;  Plut. 
de  Mus.  XXX. 


Cii.  I.  §  10.       CITIIAKCEDIC    KOMES.       TERPAKDER.  41 

his  improvements  of  the  Greek  cithara  on  a  Lydian 
instrument  of  two  octaves,  called  magadis,  which, 
under  the  Greek  name  of  pectis  or  barbiton,  he  had 
also  the  merit  of  first  introducing  into  Europe.^ 

Terpander  is  also  the  accredited  "  inventor  "  of  the 
art  of  writing  music-;  and  there  can  be  little  doubt  of 
his  having  possessed  a  system  of  notation  forming  the 
basis  of  that  still  in  use.  Here  again,  however,  his 
services  are  probably  to  be  understood  rather  in  the 
way  of  adaptation  to  native  Greek  practice  than  of 
original  discovery.  It  is  difficult  to  believe  that 
Olympus  could  not  only  have  carried  his  branch  of 
art  to  so  hio;h  a  decree  of  excellence,  but  have  sue- 
ceeded  in  transmitting  his  many  elaborate  composi- 
tions to  posterity,  without  the  aid  of  some  such 
expedient. 

Consistently  with  his  preference  of  the  lyre  as  the 
favourite  instrument  of  the  old  Heroic  Muse,  Ter- 
pander, even  in  its  adaptation  to  melic  poetry,  showed 
a  partiality  for  the  antient  rhythmical  forms.  His 
nomes  were  cliiefly  in  hexameter  verse,  and  the  words 
of  many  of  them  are  described,  not  as  his  own  com- 
position, but  portions  of  the  Homeric  poems  arranged 
by  him  to  a  lyric  accompaniment.  He  was,  howevei-, 
also  the  author  of  original  poems,  though  apparently 
few  in  number,  and  with  a  preference  here  also  for 
the  hexameter  or  other  cognate^  metres.     Of  these 

1  Boeckh,  de  Metr.  Find.  p.  261. ;  Fraj;.  Pind.  9. ;  Athen.  xiv.  p.  635. ; 
Plutarch  (De  ISI.  xviii.)  also  describes  him,  while  adding  compass  to 
his  native  lyre,  as  reducing  or  curtailing  the  superabundant  strings 
(TrepieIXe  rrjc  iroAvxopdiau)  of  the  Asiatic  instruments;  for  of  these  instru- 
ments, obviously,  the  notice  must  be  understood. 

^Plut.  de  M.  III.;  Clem.  Alex.  Str.  i.  p.  308.;  Boeckh,  de  ]\L  Pind. 
p.  245.  ;  infra,  Ch.  vii.  §  19. 

3  Ap.  Plutarch,  de  Mus.  iii.  who  also  (iv.)  iiscribes  to  him  citharoedic 
prooemia  in  epic   measure,   probably   hymns    to    Apollo,  similar  to  the 


42  EARLY    I1I:ST()RY    OF    LYRIC    POETRY.       Book  III. 

poems  several  fragments  still  remain.  One  is  a  por- 
tion of  a  hymn  or  iiome  to  Jupiter,  in  spondaic  mea- 
sure \  and  marked  by  both  grandeur  of  conception 
and  harmony  of  numbers.  Of  the  four  pure  hexa- 
meters which  have  been  preserved,  two^  recording, 
in  somewhat  boastful  terms,  his  substitution  of  the 
seven-stringed  for  the  four-stringed  lyre,  are  a  less 
favourable  sample  of  his  style.  Far  superior  are  two 
others^  imitated  by  Pindar,  in  honour  of  the  com- 
bined musical  and  military  genius  of  Sparta.  Pindar's 
assignment  to  Terpander  of  the  "  invention  "  of  the 
Scolion  or  Greek  convivial  Catch  ^,  can  hardly  be  un- 
derstood as  referring  to  any  thing  more  than  im- 
provements in  the  style  or  musical  accompaniment 
of  that  entertainment, 
other  early  11.  Tlic  ucxt  iu  Celebrity  among  these  early  im- 
cians.  "^  provers  of  Greek  melic  art  is  Thaletas,  a  native  of 
Thiiictas.  Gortys  in  Crete  ^,  and  attracted  like  Terpander  to 
Sparta,  as  the  central  seat  of  musical  culture.  Like 
Terpander  also  he  possesses  claims  to  mythical  anti- 
quity, but  his  probable  epoch  may  be  placed  about 
a  generation  subsequent  to  the  Lesbian  musician. 
His  chief  merit  consisted  in  his  application  of  Ter- 
pander's  system  to  the  martial  and  orchestic  branches 
of  Spartan  state  ceremonial,  as  founder,  in  the  year 
665  B.  c,  of  the  second  of  the  two  great  Lacedae- 
monian musical  festivals,  that  of  the  Gymnopaedia  '^ ; 

Delian  Hymn  in  the  Homeric  collection.  See  supra,  Ch.  xix.  §  3.  The 
second  fragment  in  Schneidewin's  collection  seems  to  have  belonged  to 
one  of  these  compositions.     Conf.  Procl.  Chrest.  Gaisf.  p.  382. 

'  Frg.  IV,  ap.  Schneidewin,  Delect.  Poes.  Gr. 

-  Frg.  I.  3  Yrg.  iii. ;  conf.  Plut.  Lycurg.  xxi. 

*  Plut.  de  M.  xxviir.  ^  Polymnest.  ap.  Pausan.  i.  xiv.  3. 

''  Plut.  de  INL  IX.  X.  He  must  not  be  confounded  with  another  earlier, 
perhiips  mythical  Thales  or  Thaletas,  who  acts  as  coadjutor  of  Lycurgus 


Ch.  I.  §11.        rOET-MUSICIANS.       THALETAS.  43 

Trepander  being  still  more  renowned  as  the  author 
of  the  first,  or  Carnea.  Of  the  younger  solemnity 
the  war-dance  formed  the  leading  feature,  and  it 
was  distinguished  generally  by  its  athletic  character 
from  the  graver  more  dignified  Carnea.^  The  pyr- 
rhic,  and  other  dances  chiefly  preferred  in  the  Gym- 
nopaedia,  were  held,  like  the  author  of  the  ceremony, 
to  be  of  Cretan  oris^in. 

The  personal  history  of  Thaletas  is,  in  its  details, 
little  more  than  a  counterpart  of  that  of  Terpander, 
and  may  accordingly  be  considered  as  somewhat 
apocryphal.  By  the  power  of  his  music  he  allayed  a 
pestilence  which  ravaged  the  city,  and  by  his  soothing 
influence  repressed  the  factious  spirit  of  the  inhabitants, 
and  moulded  their  wills  to  the  wise  purposes  of  their 
rulers.^  His  musical  compositions  are  described  as 
chiefly  pagans  or  hyporchems  ^,  both  of  which  were 
connected  with  the  rites  of  Apollo  and  with  the  po- 
pular exercise  of  the  dance,  and  were  nearly  akin  to 
each  other.  The  poetical  works  ascribed  to  him  were, 
accordingly,  in  pteonic  measure,  and  in  honour  of 
Apollo ;  but  no  remains  of  them  have  been  jjreserved. 
The  originality  of  his  productions  was  questioned  bv 
antient  critics,  some  of  whom  stigmatised  him  as  a 
plagiarist  of  Archilochus,  others  of  Olympus.  From 
the  latter  he  is  also  said  to  have  borrowed  the  mea- 

in  his  legislative  labours.  (Plut.  in  Lycurg.  iv.,  Clinton,  F.  H.  vol.  i. 
1)1).  159.  191.  201.)  It  is  however  not  easy  to  understand  how  Clinton, 
in  the  face  of  the  authorities  which  he  himself  quotes,  should  have  placed 
the  genuine  Thaletas,  author  of  the  second  musical  "Catastasis"  of  the 
Spartans,  earlier  than  Terpander,  the  author  of  the  first.  See  Appendix  B. 

'  Plut.  de  M.  IX. ;  Athen.  xv.  p.  678.  ;  Schol.  Find.  Pyth.  ii.  127. 

^  Find.  ap.  Philod.  de  Mus.  Voll.  Hercull.  i.  pp.  81.  91. ;  Pausan.  i.  xiv. 
3. ;  Plut.  de  M.  xlii.  ;  conf.  Miiller,  Dor.  vol.  ii.  p.  17. 

3  Plut.  de  M.  IX. ;  Schol.  Pind.  Pyth.  ii.  127. ;  Ephor.  ap.  Strab.  x. 
p.  480. 


44  EARLY    HISTORY    OF    LYRIC    POETRY.       Book  IlL 

sure  called,  probably  from  his  own  partiality  for  it, 
the  Cretic.^ 

cionas.  Nearly  contemporaneous  with  Thaletas  was  Clonas^, 

another  aulodic  musician  and  poet  of  elegies  and 
epic  hymns,  whom  the  Thebans  of  Boeotia  and  the 
Tegeans  of  Arcadia  each  claimed  as  their  citizen. 
He  shares  with  several  other  primitive  artists  the 
credit  of  having  composed  the  celebrated  trimelic 
or  tripartite  nome,  so  called  from  consisting  of  three 
parts  or  strophes,  each  in  one  of  the  three  chief  musi- 
cal modes  or  styles,  Dorian,  Phrygian,  and  Lydian. 

In  the  arrangement  of  the  Gymnopsedia,  the  name 
of  Thaletas  is  associated  ^  by  classical  authorities 
with  those  of  four  other  poet-musicians,  Xenodamus 
of  Cythera,  Xenocritus  of  Locris,  Polymnestus  of 
Colophon,  and  Sacadas,  of  Argos,  all,  like  Thaletas 
himself,  distinguished  as  performers  on  the  flute  or 
clarionet,  the  instruments  preferred  in  the  Gymno- 
pajdia.  It  is  certain,  however,  that  several  of  these 
artists  belong  to  a  much  later  epoch  than  Thaletas. 
The  notice,  therefore,  of  their  joint  services  in  regard 
to  the  Gymnoptedia,  must  be  understood  to  imply, 
not  a  simultaneous  exercise  of  their  talents,  but 
their  successive  modifications  or  improvements  of  the 
solemnity,  resulting  in  the  form  which  it  afterwards 
presented  during  the  flourishing  age  of  the  Spartan 
republic. 

xcnoda-  Xcuodamus  of  Cythera,  the  first  on  the  list,  is 
otherwise  little  known  to  fame.  A  hyporchem  how- 
ever, or  gymnastic  dance,  ascribed  to  him,  was  ex- 

Poiymne-  taut  in  later  times.  Polymnestus  %  son  of  Meles  of 
Colophon,  was  a  contemporary,   probably  a  disciple 

1  Pint,  de  M.  X.  ^  Plut.  de  M.  iii.  v.  viii. 

3  riut.  de  M.  IX.  *  Plut.  de  M.  lu.  iv.  v.  ix. 


mus, 


stus, 


Cii.  I.  §11.  OTHER    POET-iMUSICIANS.  45 

of  Thaletas.  He  was  employed  by  the  Spartans 
to  compose  an  ode  or  elegy  in  honour  of  that  mu- 
sician^, and  was  similarly  celebrated  in  his  turn 
by  Alcman  and  Pindar.^  He  may,  by  reference  to 
tlie  above  data,  be  placed  in  the  latter  part  of  the 
seventh  century  b.c.^  His  compositions  are  described 
as  belonging  chiefly  to  the  class  of  nomes  called 
Orthian,  literally  steep  or  straight,  indicating  the 
sustained  elevation  of  their  pitch."*  Several  of  his 
nomes  bore  in  later  times  the  distinctive  title  of 
Polyinnestian.  He  was  also  considered  the  originator 
of  various  more  or  less  important  refinements  of 
musical  art.^ 

Xenocritus  of  Locris  ^  towards  tlie  close  of  the  xcnocritus. 
seventh  century  B.C.,  and  Sacadas  of  Argos  in  the 
early  part  of  the  sixth,  attained  a  certain  distinc- 
tion, both  as  poets  and  musicians,  in  a  peculiar 
style  of  epico-lyric  composition,  apparently  of  Locriaii 
origin,  and  which  was  carried  to  high  perfection, 
about  or  shortly  after  the  time  of  Sacadas,  by  Stesi- 
chorus  of  Himera,  Hence,  such  notices  as  may  be 
due  to  their  character  as  poets  will  be  more  oppor- 
tunely introduced  in  connexion  with  the  history  of 
that  more  celebrated  author."  They  will  here  be 
considered  but  in  their  capacity  of  musicians.  Xe- 
nocritus, a  native  of  the  Italian  or  Epizephyrian 
Locris,  said  to  have  been  blind  from  his  infancy,  was 
celebrated  for  his  pgeans,  and  as  originator  of  a 
Locrian  school  of  music,  distinguished  for  its  elegance, 

^  Paus.  I.  xiv.  3.  -  Plut.  de  M.  v. 

3  Clint.  Fast.  Hell.  vol.  i.  p.  191. 

^  Plut.  de  M.  IX.  The  pathetic  power  of  the  Orthian  nome  is  evinced 
by  its  having  been  sung  by  Arion,  as  his  own  death  dirge,  before  his 
plunge  into  the  sea.     Herodot.  i.  xxiii. ;  conf.  Suid.  v.  op9ios  vonos. 

"  Plut.  de  Mus.  XXIX.  «  Plut.  de  Miis.  x.  '  Infra,  Ch.  iv. 


Greek  Ivric 


4(>  EARLY    HISTORY    OF    LYRIC    POETRY.      Book  III. 

hut  censured  also  for  meretricious  levity  of  style. -^ 
sacadas.  Sacadas  was  victor  in  the  coinpetition  of  flute-players 
in  the  Pythian  games,  on  the  first  (586  B.C.)  and  two 
subsequent  occasions  after  the  performance  on  that 
instrument  had  been  introduced  as  a  regular  part  of 
the  solemnity.-  He  also  competes  with  Clonas  for 
tlie  honour  of  producing  the  celebrated  trimelic 
nome.^  The  elegiac  is  described  as  his  favourite  style 
of  composition.  A  monument  at  Argos,  and  statues 
at  Olympia  and  Helicon,  with  an  ode  by  Pindar  in 
his  honour^,  bore  testimony  to  the  esteem  in  which 
he  was  held. 

12.  From  the  foregoing  historical  details,  it  ap- 
fluenceon  pears  that  Sparta  took  a  decided  lead  among  the 
states  of  Greece,  during  this  early  period,  in  the  cul- 
tivation of  lyric  poetr3\  Her  influence  however 
was  exercised,  not  through  the  agency  of  her  own 
citizens,  but  of  foreigners  invited  and  entertained  at 
public  expense.  Herein  may  appear  to  lie  a  twofold 
anomaly  :  first,  that  a  people  proverbially  indifferent 
to  the  value  of  other  kindred  arts  should  have  been 
so  feelingly  alive  to  that  of  music  ;  secondly,  that 
where  so  great  a  passion  prevailed  for  so  attractive 
a  pursuit,  talent  for  its  exercise  should  have  been 
wantino-.  The  anomaly,  however,  finds  a  satisfactory 
explanation  in  the  genius  of  the  Lacedasmouian  in- 
stitutions, which  exercised  not  merely  an  influence,  as 
in  other  states,  but  a  despotic  tyranny  over  both  the 
intellectual  pursuits  and  social  habits  of  the  citizens. 
Although    the  Dorians  may,  upon   the  whole,  have 

'  Aristot.  ap.  Heraclid.  frg.  xxx.  et  Schneidew. ;  Callini.  ap.  Schol. 
Pind.  01.  XI.  17. ;  Athen.  xiv.  p.  639.,  xv.  p.  697. ;  conf.  p.  625. 

2  Pausan.  ii.  xxii.  9. ;  conf.  Plut.  de  M.  viii. 

3  Plut.  loc.  cit. 

4  Pausan.  loc.  cit. ;  conf.  ix.  xxx.  2.,  vi.  xiv.  4.;  Plut.  loc.  cit. 


Ch.  I.  §12.       SPARTAN    INFLUENCE    ON    LYllIC    ART.  47 

been  less  gifted  by  nature  in  regard  to  tlie  imagi- 
native faculties,  than  some  other  tribes  of  their  fellow 
Hellenes,  they  were  not  certainly  deficient  in  that 
innate  sense  of  beauty  and  harmony  common  to  the 
whole  Hellenic  race.  The  example  of  Corinth  and  of 
various  other  states  sufficiently  proves  that,  where 
no  special  causes  interfered,  the  Dorians  wanted 
neither  the  faculty  nor  the  inclination  to  excel  in 
every  department  of  elegant  science.  Wherever 
therefore  in  any  case,  the  spirit  of  the  Spartan 
legislation  permitted  or  enjoined  a  participation  in 
those  pursuits  which,  as  a  general  rule,  it  was  bent  on 
repressing,  there  would  be  no  want  of  disposition  to 
profit  by  the  indulgence. 

The  vital  principle  of  the  Lacedaemonian  consti- 
tution was  harmony,  a  complete  unity  of  interests  and 
feeling  among  the  members  of  the  privileged  class ; 
an  absorption  in  fact,  to  this  extent,  of  the  indi- 
vidual in  the  mass.  According  to  a  no  less  funda- 
mental doctrine  of  Greek  political  ethics,  one  of  the 
most  efficient  modes  of  promoting  this  object  was 
a  national  system  of  music.  The  connexion  between 
music  and  political  government  among  the  Spartans, 
is  strikingly  exemplified  by  the  legends  above  nar- 
rated of  the  popular  seditions  suppressed  by  Terpander 
and  Thaletas  through  the  mere  charm  of  their 
musical  performances.  In  a  military  point  of  view 
the  value  of  this  art  was  equally  recognised  by  the 
Lacedaemonian  legislators,  as  will  be  no  less  strikingly 
illustrated  in  the  sequel,  in  treating  of  the  history  of 
Tyrt£eus.  Music  formed  an  important  element  of 
their  military  economy,  both  in  the  city  and  camp  as 
an  incitement  to  valour  and  patriotism,  and  on  the 
battle  field  as  an  aid  to  martial  discipline.     Its  ad- 


48  EARLY    HISTORY    OF    LYRIC    POETRY.       Book  III. 

vaiitngc  ill  this  latter  respect,  so  liiglily  appreciated 
ill  modern  warfare,  seems  in  fact  to  have  been  fully 
recognised  in  Sparta  alone  among  the  Greek  states. 
She  was  the  only  member  of  the  confederacy,  of 
whose  armies  the  field  movements  were  habitually 
and  systematically  regulated  by  musical  performance.^ 
The  connexion  between  music  and  dancing,  the  latter 
of  whicli  arts  constituted  an  essential  branch  of  Spartan 
military  education,  still  further  tended  to  secure  and 
extend  the  influence  of  the  former.  Nor  was  music 
less  highly  appreciated  in  a  convivial  point  of  view.^ 
In  the  syssitin,  or  public  banquets,  popular  songs,  cele- 
brating the  glory  of  the  nation  and  its  heroes,  proved 
an  effectual  means  of  riveting  the  bonds  of  social 
unity,  and  inspiring  fresh  vigour  for  the  daily  routine 
of  political  or  martial  duty.  To  the  prevalence  of 
this  custom  may  possibly  be  attributed  the  pains 
which  Terpander,  the  state  musician,  is  said  to  have 
bestowed  on  the  important  branch  of  convivial  com- 
position called  Scolion,  the  invention  of  which,  or  in 
other  words  its  improvement  or  more  artistic  regu- 
lation, forms  one  of  his  claims  to  celebrity.  To  all 
this  may  be  added,  that  Apollo  the  patron  deity  of 
the  Dorian  race,  and  especially  of  the  Spartan  re- 
public, was  by  preeminence  the  god  of  music  and 
sono'.     Hence  the  earliest  local  solemnities  of  which 

o 

lyric  performances  constitute  a  prominent  feature 
are  the  Carnean  games  of  Sparta,  in  honour  of  this 
god,  in  which  Terpander  was  the  first  victor. 

It  is  however  remarkable,  that  with  all  this  sus- 
ceptibility of  the  power  and    charm    of   music   and 

^  Thucyd.  v.  Ixx. ;  Lucian.  de  Salt.  x. ;  Plut.  de  M.  xsvi.,  Vit.  Lycurg. 
XXII. ;  Polyb.  iv.  20. ;  Atben.  xiv.  p.  627. 
'  Plut.  Lye.  XXI. ;  Atlien.  xiv.  ^.  630. 


I 


Ck.  I.  §  12.       SPARTAN    INFLUKNCP:    ON    LYRIC    ART.  40 

poetry,  and  this  higli  sense  of  the  more  solid  advan- 
ta<i:es  derived  from  an  encoura";ement  of  the  combined 
arts,  the  Spartans  themselves  do  not  seem  to  have 
been  at  all  distinguished  either  as  poets  or  musicians. 
This  apparent  inconsistency  may  be  owing  partly  to 
an  actual  want  of  original  genius  in  the  race  for  an 
art  the  creations  of  which,  as  emanating  from  the 
genius  of  others,  they  were  abundantly  qualified  to 
appreciate.  Another  cause  of  the  anomaly  may  per- 
hiips  be  found  in  the  circumstance,  that,  popular  as 
these  more  ideal  pursuits  may  have  been  in  Sparta, 
their  professional  exercise  by  Spartan  citizens,  to  the 
extent  necessary  to  form  finished  masters,  or  to  the 
neglect  of  other  more  strictly  martial  and  athletic 
accomplishments,  was  probably,  if  allowed  at  all, 
neither  encouraged  nor  approved  of.  The  history  of 
human  society,  in  every  age,  furnishes  similar  in- 
stances of  sciences  highly  prized  in  themselves,  while 
their  professors  were  liglitly  esteemed.  As,  however, 
what  mis^ht  be  deemed  effeminate  or  deirradinof  in  a 
Spartiote  reflected  no  such  discredit  on  a  Lesbian  or 
Athenian,  the  magistrates  were  at  all  times  forward 
to  invite  the  most  esteemed  foreign  professors  to 
their  city,  and  to  secure  their  services  by  handsome 
treatment  and  honourable  distinctions.  It  is  to  this 
peculiarity  that  Aristotle^  alludes,  in  describing  the 
Lacedaemonians  as  good  critics  but  bad  artists. 
Hence,  during  this  early  period,  Sparta,  while  herself 
producing  no  single  poet  or  musician  of  any  real 
eminence  among  her  own  sons'^,  was  the  central  seat 

1  Polit.  VIII.  iv.  p.  263.  Tauchn, ;  conf.  Athen.  xiv.  p.  628. 

^  Xenodamus,  one  of  the  establishers  or  improvers  of  the  Gymnop33- 
dia,  was  a  native  of  Cythera,  ami  in  so  far  a  LacedaBmoiiian,  though  not 
probably  enjoying  the  full  privileges  of  a  citizen.  His  name  however, 
VOL.  in.  E 


50  EAKLY   HISTORY    OF    LYRIC    POETRY.       Book  III. 

of  musical  culture,  and  of  a  school  of  art  which  gave 
laws  to  the  rest  of  Greece.  All  the  more  illustrious 
professors  who  flourished  during  the  ascendancy  of 
this  school,  Terpander,  Thaletas,  Tyrta^us,  Polymne- 
stus,  Alcman,  Sacadas,  were  either  settled  in  Sparta, 
or  employed  by  the  Spartan  government.  The  ex- 
ception of  Archilochus,  to  whom  on  special  grounds 
the  same  privilege  was  denied,  tends  but  to  confirm 
the  rule. 

13.  It  may  seem  strange  that  the  Spartan  school, 
oEn  i^inid  the  varieties  of  genius  to  which  it  owed  its  cul- 
schooi.  tivation,  and  of  which  the  enthusiastic  and  voluptuous 
jEolian.  as  represented  by  Terpander,  is  the  most 
conspicuous,  should  yet  have  acquired  that  gravity 
and  severity  of  character  for  which  it  was  celebrated. 
It  might  perhaps  be  said  in  explanation,  that  an 
essential  condition  of  the  popularity  of  any  foreign 
artist  would  be  an  adaptation  of  his  style  to  the 
taste  of  his  employers ;  and  that  an  ^olian  or  Ionian 
master  composing  for  a  Dorian  audience  would  be 
expected  to  divest  himself  of  his  native  method,  and 
conform  to  that  of  his  patrons.  Original  genius, 
however,  does  not  easily  submit  to  any  such  accom- 
modation to  circumstances.  It  is  more  probable  that, 
in  the  time  of  Terpander,  no  such  separation  of  tastes 
or  styles  had  yet  taken  place,  in  regard  at  least  to 
the  higher  public  or  sacred  departments  of  musical 

tilthouofh  the  most  prominent  in  the  annals  of  native  art,  cannot  rank  in 
celebrity  within  many  degrees  of  those  of  the  distinguished  foreign 
masters  above  noticed.  Other  Spartan  musicians  of  whom  incidental 
mention  occurs,  are  Gitiades,  Spendon,  DIonjsodotus.  The  first  of  these, 
architect  of  the  Brazen  House  of  Minerva,  is  said  to  have  composed 
a  hymn  to  that  goddess.  (Pans.  iii.  xvii.  3.)  Dionysodotus  was  author 
of  paeans  performed  in  the  Gymnopasdia.  (Athen.  xv.  p.  678.)  Conf. 
Pint,  in  Lvcur^r.  xxviii. 


I 


Ch.  I.  §13.  SPARTO-DORIAN    SCHOOL.  51 

performance,  which  afterwards  bore  the  name  of 
Dorian.^  The  character  of  this  graver  order  of  com- 
position was  probably  the  same,  or  similar,  at  this 
early  period,  in  every  state ;  and  the  art  of  any 
truly  great  ^Eolian  or  Ionian  master,  as  applied  to 
sacred  or  solemn  objects,  would  be  as  congenial  to 
Dorian  taste  as  the  art  of  a  native  Dorian.  When 
therefore  we  find  Terpander  described  as  establishing 
a  Spartan  system  of  music,  the  notice  is  not  to  be 
understood  as  if,  on  his  settlement  in  Lacedaamon, 
he  had  discarded  his  previous  ^olian  practice,  and 
tasked  his  genius  to  produce  a  new  style  more 
suitable  to  the  taste  of  his  new  audience  ;  but  simply 
that  the  superiority  of  his  system  to  that  previously 
in  vogue  among  the  Spartans  obtained  for  it  a  pre- 
ference, and  for  himself  the  honour  of  future  director 
of  their  musical  solemnities.  The  question  with  them 
was,  not  whether  his  style  was  iEolian  or  Dorian,  but 
whether  it  was  more  excellent  than  their  own.  This 
view  is,  indeed,  borne  out  by  the  tradition  concerning 
the  powerful  effect  of  his  music  on  their  sympathies 
on  his  very  first  performance.^ 

The  Spartan  school  therefore  represents  but  the 
graver  more  dignified  order  of  national  music,  of 
wliich  congenial  features  in  the  Laconian  character 

'  The  deference  to  Dorian  practice  seems  however,  in  later  times,  to 
have  been  far  more  broadly  exemjilified  in  regard  to  the  dialect  than  to 
the  rhytlmi  or  music,  both  in  the  choric  element  of  the  Attic  drama  and  in 
other  styles  of  lyric  composition.  Pindar  admits  no  exclusive  preference 
of  Dorian  rhythm  even  in  his  loftier  range  of  subjects.  (Boeckh.  de 
]\Ietr.  Find.  p.  276.  sq.)  The  dialect  of  the  dithyrambic  odes  was  the 
Doric,  at  least  down  to  the  age  of  Aristotle  ;  yet  that  critic  himself 
remarks  that  the  dithyrambic  metres  were  altogether  incompatible 
with  a  Dorian  musical  accompaniment.     Polit.  viii.  vii. ;  conf.  Probl. 

XfX.   XV. 

*  See  Appendix  C. 

E   2 


52  EAKLY    IIISTOKV    01'    LYUIC    TOETliY.       Book  III. 

luul  rendered  Sparta  the  principal  seat.  The  same 
influences  extended  in  a  greater  or  less  degree  to 
other  Dorian  states;  and  the  more  solemn  and  sacred 
style,  as  autliorised  not  only  in  the  Carnean,  but  the 
Olympian,  Pythian,  and  other  Panhellenic  festivals, 
acquired  the  familiar  title  of  Dorian.  To  this  ascen- 
dancy of  Dorian  taste  and  practice  is  to  be  further 
attributed  the  subsequent  general  preference  of  the 
Doric  dialect  in  the  higher  branches  of  lyric  poetry, 
as  exemplified  in  the  odes  of  Pindar  and  other 
contemporary  poets,  and  in  the  lyric  element  of  the 
Attic  drama.  The  lighter  styles  of  composition,  on 
the  other  hand,  as  more  successfully  cultivated  among 
the  native  ^Eolians  and  lonians,  acquired  from  those 
tribes  their  own  distinctive  titles,  in  contradistinc- 
tion to  the  more  severe  genius  of  the  Sparto-Dorian 
Muse. 

But  amid  all  the  ascetic  gravity  of  their  character 
and  institutions,  it  is  certain  that  the  Lacedaemonians 
■were  far  from  repudiating  a  style  of  lyric  perform- 
ance of  a  lighter  and  livelier  nature  than  that  ap- 
pointed for  more  solemn  and  serious  public  festivals ; 
a  style  even  of  a  licentious  tendency.  This  seems 
to  be  evinced  by  the  extant  remains  of  Alcman, 
their  most  popular  national  poet,  many  of  whose  odes 
would  not  be  unworthy  of  a  place  in  the  collections  of 
Sappho  or  Anacreon.  The  adaptation  of  such  words 
to  the  graver  Dorian  music,  "would  have  been  an 
anomaly  too  repugnant  to  every  law  of  propriety 
to  have  been  sanctioned  by  any  Hellenic  school  of 
art  ;  they  must  therefore  be  understood  to  have 
been  furnished  with  a  corresponding  style  of  melody. 
It  may  hence  be  presumed  that,  besides  the  improve- 
ment of  the  Dorian  music  properly  so  called,  Sparta 


I 


Ch.  r.  §  14.       STROPHIC    AND    CHORAL    STYLES.  53 

was  indebted  to  her  Terpanders  and  Polyninesti  fur 
the  introduction  of  the  more  sprightly  and  jocund 
^^olian  or  Ionian  styles,  either  as  they  prevailed  in 
the  native  countries  of  those  musicians,  or  as  modi- 
fied by  themselves  to  suit  the  taste  of  their  new 
patrons.  The  prevalence,  accordingly,  of  iEolism  in 
the  dialect  and  metres  of  ''the  Laconian  poet"  Ale- 
man  is  pointedly  noticed  by  antient  critics. 

14.   In  reverting  from  the  music  to  the  literature  strophic 

„  ^  ,     ,       .  .    .  .  •        T         '"^nd  choral 

of  Greek  Ij^ric  composition,  attention  must  again  be  styles  of 
directed  to  the  inventions  or  improvements  for  whicli  J'^'^i^"'^ '■^•■ 
Archilochus  enjoys  credit,  in  the  more  essentially 
melic,  as  well  as  elegiac  and  iambic  orders  of  Greek 
metre.  That  this  poet  was  a  great  inventive  genius 
is  vouched  for,  as  well  by  the  testimony  of  antiquity, 
as  by  the  variety  of  forms  which  Greek  poetical 
rhythm  suddenly,  as  it  were,  assumes  in  his  extant 
productions.^  The  precise  extent  to  which,  in  each 
individual  case,  he  may  be  entitled  to  the  honour  of 
priority  is  difficult  to  determine,  owing  to  the  ob- 
scurity which  involves  the  previous  stages  of  lyric 
art.  The  credit  will  at  least  remain  to  him  of  having, 
in  regard  to  a  majority  of  those  forms,  produced  the 
first  specimens  considered  worthy  of  being  preserved 
and  cherished  as  standard  models  by  the  latest  pos- 
terity. In  addition  however  to  the  simpler  styles 
of  melic  rhythm,  his  fragments  offer  the  first  traces  of 
the  next  remarkable  step  in  the  progress  of  lyric  art, 
the  development  of  the  choral  or  strophic  order  of 
poetry.  For  the  better  elucidation  of  the  early  history 
of  this  important  branch  of  composition,  a  concise 
notice  will  be  required  of  its  chief  component  parts 

'  Conf.  Plut,  dc  Mus.  xxviii. 
E  .3 


Melriral 
detinitioiis 


5t  EARLY    HISTORY    OF    LYRIC    TOETRY.       Book  III. 

or  elements.^  These  are,  a  Verse,  a  System,  and  a 
Strophe. 

A  Verse  may  be  defined  a  continuous  series  of 
metrical  nunibers,  forming  a  complete  harmonious 
clause,  of  such  length  as  may  be  conveniently  re- 
cited in  a  single  respiration. 

A  System  is  a  similar  clause  or  section  of  the  text 
of  a  metrical  composition,  the  numbers  of  which  sec- 
tion, while  succeeding  each  other  in  like  continuous 
order  ^,  are  too  extensive  to  admit  of  their  being  com- 
prised in  a  single  verse. 

A  Stro2:)he  is  a  similar  section  of  a  metrical  text, 
the  numbers  of  which  may  either  proceed  in  the  same 
iminterrupted  order  of  continuity,  or  may  comprise 
distinct  verses  or  systems  of  verses. 

Where  no  two  strophes  of  the  same  ode  correspond 
in  form  to  each  other,  or  where  an  ode  consists  of  but 
one  form  of  strophe  successively  repeated,  the  poem 
is  called  Monostrophic.  AVhere  the  same  strophe  is 
repeated  alternately  with  another  different  form  of 
strophe,  the  ode  is  called  Antistrophic;  every  alternate 
corresponding  strophe  being  entitled  the  antistrophe 
of  its  predecessor. 

By  reference  to  these  definitions,  a  system  succes- 
sively repeated  in  a  lyric  composition  forms  a  strophe. 
A  strophe  however,  not  only  does  not  necessarily 
form  a  system  ;  but  may  itself  comprise  several  sys- 
tems, alone,  or  in  connexion  with  other  unconnected 
verses  ;  or  it  may  consist  altogether  of  such  verses. 

An  epode   is   a  shorter   combination   of  numbers 

'  Conf.  Herm.  Elem.  Doctr.  metr.  p.  666.  sqq. 

'  Namely,  without  the  intervention  of  any  of  those  accidents  (hiatus, 
common  syllable,  and  others)  which  in  Greek  prosody  form  an  impedi- 
ment to  metrical  continuity.     Herm.  op.  cit.  p.  25, 


Cir.  T.  §  14.  THE    STROPHE.  55 

subjoined  to  a  longer  one.  In  the  more  elementary 
stage  of  art,  the  term  was  applied  to  the  combination 
of  a  single  short  verse  or  "  catalexis  "  with  one  or 
more  longer  verses,  so  as  to  round  them  off  into  a 
concise  system  or  strophe.  In  the  more  advanced 
stages  of  strophic  composition  it  denoted  any  concise 
series  of  verses,  or  short  strophe,  appended  to  one 
or  more  strophes  of  greater  compass,  to  enhance  the 
choric  effect  of  their  periodical  recurrence. 

The  origin  of  the  Stroplie  is  probably  coeval  with  strophe. 
that  of  lyric  song.  Such  stanzas,  or  subdivisions  of  a 
continuous  poetical  text,  are  in  every  country  a  com- 
mon or  even  universal  characteristic  of  the  popular 
ballad,  and  other  ruder  productions  of  the  infant 
Muse.  The  Greek  critics  seem  themselves  to  have 
been  of  this  oj)inion,  since,  by  a  rare  exception  to 
their  general  rule,  the  "  invention  "  of  the  strophe 
seems  nowhere  to  have  been  attributed  by  them  to 
any  definite  era  or  author.  The  invariable  con- 
nexion between  music  and  poetry  in  every  primitive 
state  of  society,  also  implies  the  existence  of  the  stro- 
phe ;  a  similar  subdivision  of  the  musical  measure 
into  staves  or  stanzas  being  indispensable  to  the 
livelier  class  of  tune  or  melody  ;  and  the  words  could 
hardly  fail  to  be  regulated  by  the  music. 

The  first  and  simplest  form  of  strophe  which,  by 
reference  to  the  foregoing  definition  of  the  term,  the 
Greek  or  indeed  any  other  language  can  present,  is 
exemplified  in  the  elegiac  distich,  where  a  short  verse 
is  subjoined  to  a  long  one.  Similar  are  those  element- 
ary combinations  already  noticed  called  Epodes,  of 
frequent  occurrence  with  Archilochus,  and  of  which 
lie  was  the  reputed  inventor.  They  usually  consist  of 
two  lines  of  mixed  dactylic  and  iambic  measure,  the 

E    4 


56  EARLY    HISTOKY    OF    LYRIC    POETRY.       Book.  III. 

second  of  Avliich  stands  to  the  first  much  in  the  same 
relation  as  the  pentameter  to  the  licxameter  in  the 
elegiac  couplet.  An  extension  of  this  more  ele- 
mentary form,  also  first  exemplified  in  the  works 
of  Archilochus,  is  the  subjoining  of  a  single  cata- 
lectic  iambic  verse  to  two  acatalectic  verses  of  the 
same  measure  ^ :  — 

alvog  Ti$  avdf/toTTCov  oOr, 
(ug  do  dy^wTrTi^  ndsToCy 

These  shorter  combinations  of  verses  are,  however, 
rarely  if  ever  comprehended  under  the  general  term 
Strophe,  but  are  familiarl}"  known,  as  already  re- 
marked, by  the  proper  title  of  Epode. 

Strophic  odes,  in  the  more  restricted  sense,  may 
be  classed  under  two  heads,  Melic  and  Choric.  The 
former  head  comprises  such  compositions  as  were 
sung  or  recited,  with  or  without  instrumental  accom- 
paniment, by  a  single  voice,  or  a  chorus  of  limited 
number,  for  the  most  part  it  would  appear  on  private 
convivial  occasions.     The  choric  odes  were  performed 

^  The  verses  called  Asynartete  (or  disjointed),  another  imputed  Inven- 
tion of  Archilochus,  and  to  the  use  of  which  he  was  partial,  also  belong 
properly  to  this  elementary  class  of  epodes.  They  are  deficient  in  the 
metrical  continuity  essential  to  a  single  verse,  comprising  in  reality  two,  a 
shorter  subjoined  to  a  longer  one,  as  in  the  simplest  form  of  the  epode. 
The  only  difference  consists  In  the  customary  mode  of  writing  them. 
When,  therefore,  as  occasionally  happens,  another  shorter  verse  is  sub- 
joined to  the  so-called  Asynartete,  the  result  is  a  strophe  or  epode  of 
three  lines.     Ex.  gr. 

Kdp<peTai  yap  fj^r] ' 
oyfws  KaKov  Se  yripaos  KadaipeT. 

Archil,  ap.  Bergk.  Poett.  lyrr.  p.  487. 
frg.  9L;  conf.  104. 


Cu.  T.  §  15.       MELIC    STROPHE.       CIIORIC    STROPHE.  57 

in  the  public  solemnities,  in  conjunction  with  the 
dance  or  processional  rites. 

The  distinctive  properties  of  the  Melic  Stroplie  arc  Meiic 

,  . ,  1  •    •  1        rm  1  n  Strophe. 

comparative  brevity  and  precision.^  ihe  number  ot 
verses  in  each  rarely  in  the  more  classical  odes  of 
the  kind  exceeds  four,  usually  marked  by  a  certain 
similarity  of  rhythmical  character.  As  a  general 
rule,  the  continuity  of  numbers  is  not  extended  be- 
yond the  limits  of  each  verse.  The  last  verse  fre- 
quently assumes  the  form  of  an  epode  or  catalexis  to 
the  remainder,  imparting  to  the  whole  an  elegant 
roundness  and  compactness  of  numbers.  The  poems 
of  this  class  are  invariably  monostrophic,  consisting, 
that  is,  of  but  a  single  form  of  strophe  repeated 
throusrhout  from  the  commencement  to  the  con- 
elusion.  This  style  of  composition,  if  not  of  iEolian 
origin,  appears  in  its  greatest  perfection  in  the  works 
of  iEolian  poets.  The  oldest  and  most  excellent  spe- 
cimens Avhich  have  been  preserved  are  the  Sapphic 
and  Alcaic  odes,  so  called  from  the  preference^  given 
to  the  rhythmical  forms  in  which  they  are  composed, 
by  the  two  distinguished  chiefs  of  the  Lesbian  school, 
Sappho  and  Alcaeus. 

15.  The  properties  of  the  Choric  strophe  may  be  choric 
defined  as  in  a  great  measure  the  opposite  of  those  Anti- 
by  which  the  Melic   strophe  has  just   been   charac-  ^\™de.^' 
terised.     The   former  requires    or  admits   a   greater 
number   of    verses,    with    a    proportionally   greater 
complexity  and  compass  of  rhythmical  forms.      The 
continuity  of  numbers   is    also,    as  a  general   rule, 

'  Dion.  Hal.  de  Comp.  Verb.  xix. ;  Herra.  Doctr.  Rei  metr.  p.  674. 

^  This  remark  applies  to  other  similar  phrases,  Alcmanic,  Stesichorean, 
Pindaric,  &c.,  which,  as  a  general  rule,  refer  to  the  favourite  rather  than 
to  the  first  use  of  those  various  forms  by  the  authors  whose  names  they 
bear.     Conf.  Theon.  ap.  Welck.  Alkiios  ;  Klein.  Schr.  vol.  i.  p.  137. 


58  EARLY    IIISTOKY    OF    LYRIC    POETRY.       Book  III. 

prolonged  beyond  the  close  of  eacli  line,  sometimes 
through  the  whole  stroplie.  At  other  times  this 
continuity  is  limited  to  separate  groups  of  verses, 
forming,  in  each  strophe,  subordinate  rhythmical 
masses  or  systems  witliin  its  own  limits.  A  cor- 
responding variety  and  complexity  are  observable 
in  the  structure  of  the  entire  ode.  Instead  of  being 
restricted,  like  the  compositions  of  the  melic  class,  to 
a  single  model  of  strophe  repeated  in  succession, 
although  that  method  is  not  excluded,  it  admits  of 
several  varieties  of  form ;  strophe  and  antistrophe 
alternating  and  responding  to  each  other.  This 
arrangement  was  still  further  varied  by  the  addition 
of  the  epode ;  which  term,  as  already  remarked, 
denoted,  in  this  more  advanced  stage  of  strophic  com- 
position, a  shorter  subsidiary  strophe  subjoined  to 
each  pair  of  principal  masses,  and  imparting  distinct- 
ness to  their  periodical  returns.  To  these  three  ele- 
ments, strophe,  antistrophe,  and  epode,  may  be  re- 
duced the  numerous  forms  of  ode  exemplified  in  the 
page  of  the  lyric  or  tragic  poets.  The  epode,  when 
prefixed  to  the  two  former,  assumes  the  name  of 
Proode  ;  when  inserted  between  them,  that  of  Mesode. 
The  choric  ode,  in  addition  to  its  greater  variety  of 
parts  and  numbers,  and  the  wider  scope  which  it  thus 
afl^orded  to  the  expression  of  mental  emotion,  is  distin- 
guished, as  a  general  rule,  by  a  superior  dignity  and 
severity  of  character,  qualifying  it  for  the  more  solemn 
or  sacred  orders  of  public  festivity.  To  such  occasions 
accordingl}",  during  the  flourishing  ages  of  Greek  art, 
its  performance  was  solely  or  chiefly  appropriated. 
The  more  weight,  therefore,  is  due  to  the  tradition 
which  traces  its  earliest  cultivation  to  the  Sparto- 
Dorian  school.     The  terra  Cultivation  is  here  again 


Cu.  I.  §  15.       STROPHE.       ANTISTROPIIE.       EPODE.  59 

more  appropriate  than  that  of  Invention.  The  origin 
of  antistrophic  recital,  like  that  of  the  elementary 
strophe  or  stanza,  may  reasonably  be  sought  in  the 
more  primitive  ages  of  poetical  culture.  The  prac- 
tice of  singing  in  parts,  or  of  choral  response,  wlie- 
ther  with  or  without  alternation  of  measure  and  air, 
was  as  old  as  the  days  of  Homer. ^  The  merit  of  the 
Spartan  school  may,  therefore,  be  limited  to  the  esta- 
blishment of  a  more  regular  and  scientific  method  of 
arrangement.  The  claims  of  Lacedsemon,  as  placed 
on  this  modified  basis,  are  also  favoured  by  the  pecu- 
liarly close  connexion  between  lyric  poetry  and  the 
dance  in  this  republic.  While  to  that  connexion 
this  style  of  composition  is  indebted  for  its  proper 
title  of  Choric,  or  Choral,  the  name  Strophe  is  de- 
rived, with  apparent  reason,  from  the  turns  or  pas- 
sages of  the  choristers  in  the  performance  of  their 
evolutions.  Strophe  and  Antistrophe  signify  their 
advance,  retreat,  or  procession  round  the  altar;  Epode, 
their  stationary  position.  To  Alcman  accordingly, 
one  of  the  state  musicians  of  Sparta,  the  scanty  no- 
tices transmitted  by  the  antients  ascribe  the  "  inven- 
tion "  of  the  antistrophic  ode.  He  is  more  parti- 
cularly cited  ^  as  the  author  of  one  consisting  of 
fourteen  strophes,  subdivided  into  two  sets  of  seven, 
each  with  its  separate  form  of  numbers ;  but  in 
what  precise  mode  the  parts  of  each  were  disposed, 
we  are  not  informed.     The  remains  of  Alcman  com- 

'  II.  I.  604.  The  notices  of  several  nomes  of  Olympus,  Terpjinder,  and 
other  poets  prior  to  Alcman,  also  seem  to  point  at  various  forms  of  anti- 
strophic arrangement.  It  seems,  however,  doubtful  whether  that  arrange- 
ment in  these  cases  extended  to  the  literary  text,  or  may  not  rather  have 
been  limited  to  the  musical  element  of  the  composition.  Plut.  de  Mua. 
IV.  VII.  viii.  alibi. 

'  Heph.  Gaisf.  p.  134.;  conf.  Welck.  Fragm.  Akm.  p.  13. 


GO  EARLY    HISTOllV    OF    LY15IC    TOETRY.       Book  III. 

prise  accordingly  several  passages  marked  by  much 
of  the  continuity  and  consistency  proper  to  the  choric 
stroplie,  but  in  no  case  of  sufficient  length  to  admit 
of  their  being  distinctly  identified  as  parts  of  an  anti- 
strophic  ode. 

The  addition  of  the  epode  to  the  strophe  and  anti- 
strophe  is  ascribed  to  another  distinguished  lyric 
poet,  Stesichorus  of  Himera,  a  younger  contemporary 
of  Alcman.  To  the  joint  services  of  these  two  authors 
in  the  improvement  of  their  art  allusion  appears  to 
be  made  in  the  notice  by  Clemens  of  Alexandria  \ 
that  while  Alcman  "  invented  "  the  choric  ode,  Stesi- 
chorus "invented"  the  hymn.  The  latter  allusion 
is  probabl}'  to  the  perfecting  of  the  choral  or  anti- 
strophic  order  of  hymn,  which  had  supplanted  the 
old  epic  hymns  in  the  popular  festivals,  and  of  which 
the  epode  formed  a  principal  element.^ 
Triad  of  So  great  was  the  celebrity  of  this  invention  in  later 
times,  that  the  "  Triad  of  Stesichorus  "^  (denoting  the 
strophe,  antistrophe,  and  epode)  passed  into  a  pro- 
verb for  the  fundamental  elements  of  a  liberal  educa- 

1  Strom.  I.  p.  308.  c. ;  conf.  Plut.  <le  ]\Ius.  xii.  ;  Dion.  Hal.  de  Comp. 
Verb.  XIX. 

-  Similar  seems  to  be  the  import  of  another  enigmatical,  and  in  its 
literal  sense  unmeaning,  statement  of  Suidas,  that  the  name  of  the 
Himeraean  poet  "was  altered  from  Tisias  to  Stesichorus,  owing  to  his 
having  first  brought  the  lyre  into  use  in  the  accompaniment  of  the 
chorus."  The  allusion  is  here  probably  to  the  distinction  mentioned  by 
other  authorities,  that  the  song  of  the  chorus  when  in  motion,  that  is, 
when  executing,  in  the  primitive  spirit  of  the  choral  ode,  the  strophe  and 
antistrophe,  was  accompanied  by  wind  instruments  ;  but  that  the  "hymn," 
in  the  stricter  sense,  or  "stationary  part"  of  the  solemnity,  namely  the 
epode  in  the  same  early  practice,  was  accompanied  by  the  lyre.  Suid. 
V.  2T7j(ri\opos  ;  Procl.  Chrestom.  Gaisf.  p.  381.;  Didym.  ap.  Etym.  M.  v. 
■jrpocra,'5i'ai. 

^  Suid.  V.  ovZi  rot  Tpla  SrTjaixo'po" ;  conf  Gaisf.  Parcemiogr.  Gr.  p.  88. 
153. ;  Klein.  Fragm.  Stesich.  p.  37. 


Stesicho 
rus, 


Cii.  I.  §  15.  TRIAD    OF    STESICIIUIIUS.  Gl 

tion.  The  pedigree  of  this  poet  is  somewhat  obscure. 
He  seems,  however,  to  have  been  a  member  of  a  Lo- 
crian  family  settled  in  the  mixed  colony  of  Himera, 
on  the  north  coast  of  Sicily  ;  and  the  more  fabulous 
details  of  his  history  traced  his  descent  from  Ilesiod.^ 
Upon  this  view  of  his  origin  it  wouhl  result,  that  to 
the  same  primitive  ^olian  genius  to  which  Greece 
owed  the  perfection  of  her  epic  minstrelsy  in  the 
muse  of  Homer  and  Hesiod,  and  of  her  art  of  music  in 
that  of  Terpander,  she  was  also  indebted,  in  a  some- 
what less  direct  line,  for  the  last  finish  imparted  by 
Stesichorus  to  this,  her  purest  and  most  dignified 
order  of  lyric  poetry.  Nor  can  a  share,  perhaps  an 
equal  share,  in  the  merit  of  perfecting  this  branch 
of  art  be  justly  withheld  from  another  poet  of 
purest  Jiolian  blood,  and  an  early  contemporary 
of  Stesichorus,  Arion  of  Lesbos  ^ ;  whose  dithyrambic 
chorus,  there  can  be  little  doubt,  embodied,  though 
in  less  distinct  or  regular  forms,  the  same  three  es- 
sential elements  of  antistrophic  composition.  And 
here,  again,  it  is  remarkable  that  tlie  fruits  of  ^olian 
genius  were  elicited  and  matured  under  Dorian 
auspices.  Arion  was  the  court  musician  of  Periander 
of  Corinth,  where  the  dithyramb  was  first  composed 
and  performed.  That  Stesichorus  also  composed 
under  Dorian  influences  may  be  assumed,  as  well 
from  the  ascendancy  of  the  Dorian  race  and  habits  in 
his  native  island,  as  from  the  grave  and  serious  ten- 
dency of  his  compositions  and  his  preference  of  the 
Doric  dialect.  The  historical  notices  however  of 
these  two  authors,  contain  no  allusion  to  any  such 
connexion  between  them  and  Sparta,  as  existed  in  the 

1  Infra,  Ch.  iv.  §  9.  sq.  «  i„f,.,^^  ch.  ii.  §  6.  Iv.,  §  5.  sq. 


62  EARLY    HISTORY    OF    LYRIC    POETRY.       Book  III. 

case  of  their  predecessors  in  lyric  invention.  From 
the  period  when  they  flourished,  downwards,  the 
claims  of  that  republic  to  the  honour  of  exclusive  or 
central  seat  of  the  Dorian  school  of  art  appear  to  have 
declined,  simultaneously  with  the  general  spread  of 
poetical  and  musical  culture  through  the  other  mem- 
bers of  the  confederacy ;  nor  does  Sparta  herself 
exhibit  any  similar  zeal  for  the  maintenance  of  her 
ascendancy. 


Ch.  II.  §1.   ORDERS  OF  LYRIC  PERFOKMAKCE.        63 


\ 


CHAP.  II. 

ORDERS   AND    OCCASIONS    OF    LYRIC   PERFORMANCE. 

I.  THEIR  NUMBER  AND  TARIETT.      NOME.       HYMN. — 2.  P^EAN. 3.  U-JTORCHEM, 

ITS    DRAMATIC    ELEMENT. 4.    PROSODIA.       PARTHENIA         DAPHNE-PHORICA. 

5.  DITHYRAMB.       ITS  EARLIEST    FORM.       DITHYRAMB  OF  ARION. 6.   DORIC 

MIMES.  —  7.  POETICAL  AND  METRICAL  CHARACTERISTICS  OF  ARION'S  DITHY- 
RAMB. —  8.  ITS  OTHER  TITLES.  CYCLIAN  CHORUS.  TRAGCEDIA,  OR  GOAT- 
SONG.  9.   TRANSITION    FROM    DITIIYRAMBIC   TRAGCEDIA  TO  ATTIC    TRAGEDY. 

LYRIC    TRAGEDY.  10.    LYRIC    COMEDY;     "  SATYR  "   OR     SATYRIC     DRAMA. 

11.    THRENUS.         SONG    OF     LINUS. 12.     CONVIVIAL    POETRY    (SYMPOSIACA). 

P^E.U^.       PARCENIA. —  13.  SCOLIA,  or   GREEK    MUSICAL   CATCHES.  14.  THEIR 

POETICAL       AND       RHYTHMICAL       CHARACTERISTICS.  ALLITERATION       AND 

RHYME.  15.    ENCOMIA.         COSIUS.         EPINICIA.  16.    EROTICA.         GAMELIA. 

HYMEN^A.  EPITHALAMIA. 17.  MILITARY    MUSIC:    WAR   SONGS,    MARCHES. 

18.     "popular"    SONGS.       DEFINITION    OF. 19.    EXTANT    SPECIMENS. 

1.  Having  now  passed  in  review  the  origin  and  ele-  Their 
mentary  principles  of  Greek  lyric  composition,  it  and"variety. 
remains  to  consider  the  various  modes  of  its  adapta- 
tion to  those  festive  rites,  public  or  private,  with 
which  its  higher  cultivation  was  so  vitally  connected. 
The  number,  variety,  and  methodical  distinction  of 
these  modes  or  orders  of  lyric  performance,  supply 
one  of  the  most  striking  illustrations  of  the  fertile 
cenius  and  discriminatino:  taste  of  the  Greek  nation. 
From  Olympus  down  to  the  workshop  or  the  sheep- 
fold,  from  Jove  and  Apollo  to  the  wandering  mendi- 
cant, every  rank  and  degree  of  the  Greek  community, 
divine  or  human,  had  its  own  proper  allotment  of 
poetical  celebration.  The  gods  had  their  hymns, 
nomes,  paeans,  dithyrambs  ;  great  men  their  encomia 
and  epinicia;  the  votaries  of  pleasure  their  erotica 
and  symposiaca ;  the  mourner  his  threnodia  and 
elegies  ;  the  vinedresser  had  his  epilenia ;  the  herdsmen 


k 


G-i  OIJDERS    OF    LYRIC    PERFORMANCE.        Book  III. 

their  bucolica  ;  even  the  begp;ar  his  iresione  and  che- 
lodonisnia.  The  number  of  these  varieties  of  Grecian 
song  recorded  under  distinct  titles,  and  most  of  them 
enjoying  a  certain  benefit  of  scientific  culture,  amounts 
to  upwards  of  fifty. ^  A  portion  indeed  of  this  num- 
ber no  longer  exist  but  in  name  ;  and,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  those  immediately  connected  with  the  great 
public  festivals,  few  have  been  described  with  such 
precision,  or  are  so  clearly  illustrated  by  existing 
specimens,  as  to  supply  materials  for  treatment  as 
distinct  heads  of  subject.  Those  which  in  this  more 
tangible  capacity  will  here  chiefly  claim  attention  are 
the  following:  the  Hymn,  Xome,  Pa^an,  Hyporchem, 
Prosodium,  Parthenia,  Dithyramb,  Threnus,  Sympo- 
siaca.  Encomia,  Epinicia,  Erotica,  Gamelia,  Embateria. 
This  catalogue  may  be  ranged  under  two  general 
heads,  of  Sacred,  and  Profane  or  secular-:  the  for- 
mer comprising  poems  in  exclusive  honour  of  the 
gods ;  the  latter  those  devoted,  in  whole  or  in  part, 
to  human  concerns  or  interests.  To  the  former  head 
belong  the  hymn,  nome,  p^ean,  hyporchem,  prosodium, 
dithyramb ;  to  the  latter,  the  symposiaca,  encomia, 
epinicia,  erotica,  gamelia,  embateria.^  As  an  inter- 
mediate class,  partaking  of  both  characters,  may  be 
ranked  the  threnus  and  parthenia.  To  the  notices  of 
these  more  regular  orders  of  composition  will  be  sub- 
joined, under  the  head  of  "  Popular  Songs,"  a  few 

'  See  Ugen,  Scolia  sive  Caniiina  convivialia  Grace,  p.  xiv.  sqq. 

»  Conf.  Procl.  Clirestom.  ed  Gaisf.  p.  380.  sq. 

3  To  these  might  be  added  the  Elegy  in  its  various  branches,  and  the 
himpoon,  or  satirical  poem  (<riAAot,  aKwimKoi,  &c.).  The  elegy  however 
has  already  (Ch.  i.)  been  examined  under  its  own  proper  title.  For  the 
others,  which  can  scarcely  be  considered  as  forming  any  separate  branch 
of  composition,  see  the  previous  head  of  Iambus,  and  the  sections  on  the 
Scolia  infra,  §  13.  sq.  ;  with  those  on  Archilochus  and  Simonides  in 
Ch.  iii. 


Ch.  IT.  §1.  HYMN.       NOME.  65 

remarks  on  some  other  liigbly  characteristic  but  less 
polished  productions  of  Greek  lyric  genius. 

The  first  two  names  in  the  above  list,  Hymn  and  Hymn. 
Nome,  are,  as  remarked  in  a  former  page,  in  their 
primary  sense  rather  generic  terms  applicable  to 
every  more  dignified  species  of  melic  composition, 
than  designations  of  any  particular  class  of  ode.  The 
pa3an,  for  example,  was  the  hymn  of  rejoicing  or 
triumph ;  the  prosodion,  the  processional  hymn ;  the 
prooemium,  the  introductory  hymn  to  the  sacred  office 
in  the  sanctuar3\  The  term  Dithyramb,  in  its  origin, 
appears  to  have  comprised  every  species  of  Bacchic 
hymn,  as  that  of  Psean,  in  familiar  usage,  was  more 
especially  applied  to  the  hymns  to  Apollo.^  In  later 
times  however,  the  title  Hymn  appears  to  have  at- 
tached in  a  peculiar  sense  to  the  odes  sung  by  the 
chorus  during  the  sacrifice,  when  stationary  around 
the  altar.^ 

Nome,  in  its  original  more  comprehensive  significa-  Nome, 
tion,  denoted  simply  that  more  definite  adaptation  of 
musical  to  poetical  numbers  which  forms  the  essence 
of  all  lyric  composition,  as  distinct  from  the  continu- 
ous chant  or  recitative  of  the  old  epic  minstrelsy.^ 
But  in  the  more  advanced  stages  of  lyric  art, 
the  term  is  restricted  in  a  proper  sense  to  a  certain 
more  solemn  order  of  hymn  or  anthem,  the  older 
specimens  of  which  were  marked  by  a  peculiar  sim- 
plicity and  dignity  of  style,  and  passed  generally 
current  as  productions  of  the  earliest  and  purest 
periods  of  lyric  art.*  Consistently  with  the  same 
gravity    and   solemnity   of   character,    the   nome   is 

'  Didym.  ap.  Etym.  M.  et  Orion  Theb.  v.  v/xvos ;   Menand.  Rh.  de 
Encom.  ii.  ;  Plato  de  Legg.  p.  700. 

^  See  supra,  p.  60.  ^  See  Ch.  i.  §  9. 

*  Plato  de  Legg.  p.  700.  ;  Procli  Chrestom.  p.  383.  Gaisf. 
VOL.  III.  I" 


06  ORDERS    OF   LYRIC    PERFORMANCE.        Book  III. 

further  described  as  the  only  branch  of  Greek  lyric 
composition  which  was  never  combined  with  the 
performance  of  the  dance,  nor  ever,  by  consequence, 
admitted  of  antistrophic  arrangement.^  No  ascer- 
tained examples  have  been  preserved  of  poems  en- 
titled Nomes  in  this  more  limited  sense. 

P^AN. 

Tfean.  2.  The  po^an,  in  its  oldest  and  purest  form,  may 
be  considered  in  the  light  of  the  popular  hymn  or 
anthem  of  the  Hellenic  race.^  It  united,  by  a  natural 
association  of  opposite  ideas,  the  characteristics  both 
of  song  of  war  and  song  of  peace.  As  a  song  of 
rejoicing  for  victory  in  battle,  or  deliverance  from 
calamity,  it  was  also  a  song  of  repose  and  relaxation, 
as  the  fruits  of  the  achievement.  A  ptean  was  sung 
accordingly  on  attacking  the  enemy,  to  propitiate  the 
gods  and  encourage  the  troops,  and  after  the  victory, 
to  celebrate  the  triumph.^  The  psean  was  at  every 
period  more  immediately  connected  with  the  worship 
of  Apollo,  a  preference  to  which  he  was  entitled  as 
the  patron  god  of  music.  But  that  preference  was 
not  such  as  to  exclude  the  claims  of  other  deities.* 
In  the  Iliad  the  pasan  is  described  as  sung  in  special 
honour  of  Apollo,  at  the  expiatory  sacrifice  in  his 
Chrysean  sanctuary.  It  is  also  chanted  by  the 
whole    Greek  army,   as   a  triumphal  hymn,   on  the 

1  Aristot.  Probl.  xix,  32. 

2  Hence  occasionally,  though  rarely,  and  in  a  somewhat  far-fetched 
strain  of  poetical  metaphor,  the  term  is  applied  in  the  same  general  sense 
of  hymn  or  ode  to  other  compositions  of  a  A'ery  different  character.  Bode, 
Gesch.  d.  Hell.  Dichtk.  vol.  ii.  part  i.  p.  20. 

^  Thucyd.  ii.  xci.,  iv.  xliii.  Schol.  ad  loc,  vii.  xliv. ;  Xenoph.  Anab.  iii. 
ii.  5.     See  infra,  §§  12.  17. 

*  Procl.  Chrest.  p.  381.  Gaisf. ;  Boeckh,  Fragm.  Pind.  p.  568.  ;  conf. 
Beruhardhy,  Gesch.  der  Griech.  Lit.  vol.  ii.  p.  450. 


Cri.  IT.  §  2.  P^.AN.  67 

march  back  to  the  ships  with  the  body  of  Hector. 
On  this  occasion,  however,  it  could  hardly  have  been 
selected  as  the  hymn  of  Apollo,  Hector  having  been 
throughout  the  war  notoriously  the  favourite  hero  of 
that  deity,  who  in  support  of  the  Trojan  cause  had 
shown  himself  the  most  fatal  enemy  of  the  Greeks. 
The  name,  in  its  Homeric  form  Paieon,  corresponds 
with  that  of  Homer's  god  of  medicine,  and  may  be 
referred  to  the  same  origin,  as  significant  of  relief  or 
deliverance  from  labour  or  distress.^ 

Among  the  more  familiar  examples  of  songs  under 
this  title,  sung  in  honour  of  other  deities  besides 
Apollo,  were  the  martial  paeans  chanted  in  the  hour 
of  battle  or  at  other  times.  These,  in  each  state, 
were  commonly  dedicated  to  its  own  patron  deity, 
and  even  among  the  Spartans,  whose  patron  god  was 
Apollo,  were  frequently  addressed  to  Mars.^ 

The  custom  of  singing  the  pasan  at  banquets,  re- 
stricted by  Homer  to  expiatory  feasts,  prevailed  in 
subsequent  ages  at  ordinary  convivial  meetings.  The 
musical  part  of  such  entertainments  commenced  and 
closed  with  paeans  chanted  in  chorus  by  the  whole 
company,  and  usually  distinguished  from  other  con- 
vivial songs  by  the  recurrence  of  the  burden  "  leie- 
Paian."  ^  Paeans  were  also  chanted  at  the  ratification 
of  treaties  of  peace,  and  in  Roman  times  at  the  co- 
ronation of  the  emperors.  The  instances  in  which 
paeans  were  composed  in  honour  of  private  individuals 

'  (iraoj)  -jravui.  The  phrases  iTji'os,  frjie,  in  the  burthen  of  the  chant,  may 
in  like  manner  be  derived  from  Ido/j-ai.  The  two  gods  were  identified  in 
later  times ;  but  there  is  no  trace  of  any  such  connexion  in  the  early 
mythology. 

^   Suid.  V.  naiaves. 

2  Alcman.  frg.  xi.  Bergk. ;  Plat.  Symp.  p.  176.;  Plut.  Symp.  i.  i., 
VII.  viii.  4. ;  Xenoph.  Anab.  v.  ix,  (vi.  i.),  Symp.  ii.  i.  ;  Timae.  ap.  Atheu. 
VI.  p.  250.  conf.  V.  p.  179.,  xiv.  p.  630. 

F  2 


G8  ORDERS    OF    LYRIC    PERFORMANCE.        Book  III. 

are  confined  to  the  lower  more  corrupt  ages  of  Hel- 
lenism, when  the  bestowal  of  divine  honours  on  great 
men  became  a  favourite  form  of  popular  adulation. 
Such  were  the  preans  celebrating  Lysander,  Antigo- 
nus,  and  Demetrius  Poliorcetes.^ 

That  the  pa3an  of  the  Homeric  age  was  in  hex- 
ameter verse  may  be  assumed,  on  the  general  ground 
that  this  was  the  chief  or  only  metre  adapted  at  that 
early  period  to  the  higher  orders  of  poetry.  The 
first  artistic  arrangement  of  pagans  to  other  properly 
melic  forms  is  commonly  ascribed  to  the  Creto-Spartan 
musician  Thaletas^,  who  is  said  to  have  composed 
pteans  in  the  rhythm  which,  from  his  own  country 
or  from  himself  as  its  accredited  inventor,  acquired 
the  name  of  Cretic.  Hence  also  a  certain  modifica- 
tion of  that  rhythm,  more  especially  adapted  to  these 
hymns,  obtained  the  title  of  Pseonic  measure  ;  the  pe- 
culiar feature  of  which  was  the  solution  of  one  of  the 
two  long  syllables  of  the  Cretic,  imparting  liveliness 
and  variety  to  what  is  in  itself  a  somewhat  mono- 
tonous cadence.  Before  the  time  of  Thaletas  how- 
ever, Archiloclius  sang  the  "  Lesbian  paean  "  in  lively 
trochaic  measure  ^ ;  and  in  the  subsequent  stages  of 
its  cultivation  the  st}le  of  composition  admitted  a 
great  variety  of  rhythmical  arrangement,  with  little  or 
no  special  preference,  judging  from  extant  remains, 
either  of  the  cretic  or  poeonic.'^  The  antiquity  of  a  real 
or  mythical  connexion  of  the  paean  with  Cretan  forms 
of  celebration  is  vouched  for  by  the  Homeric  hymn 
to  Apollo  Pythius,  where  the  destined  Cretan  minis- 
ters of  his  oracle,  on  their  progress  from  the  shore  to 

1  Athen.  vi.  p.  2.53.,  conf.  xv.  p.  696.  ;  Diog.  Laert.  v.  v.  7.;  Plut. 
vit.  Lys.  xviii.,  vit.  Cleom.  xvi. 

^  Plut.  de  Mus.  IX.  X. ;  conf.  Boeckb,  de  Metr.  Pind.  p.  14-3. 

'  Frg.  xLi.  Bergk.  *  Boeckli,  Fragm.  Pind.  p.  567.  sqq. 


Ch.II.  §3.  HYPORCHEM.  G9 

the  sanctuary,  are  described  as  "  chanting  the  pa^an 
in  the  mode  in  which  the  Cretan  pasan  was  used  to 
be  chanted."  The  song  was  also  accompanied  on 
this  occasion  by  dancing,  Apollo  himself  heading  the 
chorus.  This,  while  an  apparent  innovation  upon 
Homer's  description  of  the  pa3an,  is  also  in  harmony 
with  Creto-Dorian  taste,  which  loved  to  unite  the 
dance  with  almost  every  branch  of  festive  solemnity. 
The  dance  accordingly  remained  in  later  times  a 
popular,  though  not  an  essential  accompaniment  of 
the  pa3an.^ 

HYPORCHEM. 

3.  The  term  Hyporchem  denotes,  in  familiar  usage,  Hypor- 
both  a  popular  Hellenic  dance,  and  the  branch  of  ^^^"^' 
lyric  composition  by  which  that  dance  was  accom- 
panied.^ The  musical  or  poetical  element  of  the 
hyporchem,  from  the  earliest  period  of  its  cultiva- 
tion, appears  in  style  and  numbers  to  have  closely 
resembled  the  pasan.  Both  performances  were  con- 
nected preferably,  during  their  best  period,  with  the 
worship  of  Apollo^ ;  and  a  favourite  measure  of  both 
was  the  cretic  or  paeonic.  Much  similarity  is  ac- 
cordingly observable  between  existing  specimens  of 
each  order  of  composition ;  and  among  the  antient 
critics  themselves  it  was  often  matter  of  doubt  under 
which  denomination  an  ode  was  to  be  ranked.*  The 
main  difference  seems  to  have  been,  that  the  psean 
was  characterised  by  a  pervading  dignity  and  pro- 
priety, the  hyporchem  by  a  greater  degree  of  viva- 
city, tending  at  times  to  levity  or  license.^     Another 

*  Athen.  xiv.  p.  631.  -  Procl.  Clirestom.  p.  384.  Gaisf. 
'  Menaud.  Rhet.  de  Encom.  i. 

*  Plut.  de  Mas.  ix. ;  conf:  Boeckh,  dj  Mctr.  Pind.  p.  201. 

*  See  a  hyporchem  of  Pratinas  ap.  Athen.  xiv.  p.  6)7. 

F    3 


70 


ORDERS   OF   LYRIC    TERFORMANCE.         Book  III. 


Dramatic 
eleincnt  of 
the  hypor- 
chem. 


feature  of  distinction  between  the  pagan  and  the 
hyporchem  was  the  greater  prevalence  in  the  latter, 
when  combined  with  dancing,  of  that  mimetic  action 
which  entered  more  or  less  into  all  such  solemnities 
among  the  Greeks.  That  this  ingredient  of  the  cere- 
mony was  carried  in  the  hyporchem  to  a  high  degree 
of  perfection  may  be  gathered  from  Plutarch's  special 
appeal  to  that  dance,  in  illustration  of  his  maxim, 
that  poetry  was  an  articulate  species  of  dancing,  the 
dance  a  silent  species  of  poetry.^  A  third  distinction 
between  the  two  was,  that  the  paean  during  the  best 
ages  was  exclusively  addressed  to  the  gods ;  hypor- 
chems  appear  to  have  been,  though  rarely,  composed 
and  performed  in  honour  of  men.^  In  both  styles  of 
composition,  the  accompaniment  of  whid  or  of  stringed 
instruments  was  equally  authorised  by  reference  to 
the  place  or  occasion  of  the  performance. 

There  was  this  further  interesting  analogy  between 
the  psean  and  the  hyporchem,  that  while  the  paean 
as  above  characterised  was  the  antient  national  an- 
them of  the  Hellenic  race,  the  hyporchem  may 
equally  claim  to  represent  their  oldest  popular  dance. 
The  chorus  described  by  Homer  as  sculptured  on 
one  of  the  compartments  of  the  shield  of  Achilles 
corresponds  in  all  essential  particulars,  as  has  been 
remarked  by  the  best  classical  authorities,  to  the 
hyporchematic  dance,  as  that  dance  was  performed  in 
every  subsequent  age  of  Greek  antiquity,  and  is  still 
performed  by  the  native  peasantry  of  various  parts 
of  Greece  on  days  of  popular  festivity.  The  chorus, 
in  the  lliad^,  consists  of  a  band  of  youths  and 
maidens  in  festive  attire,  with  joined  hands,  sometimes 

J  Symp.  IX.  XV.  2. ;  conf.  Luc.  de  Salt.  xvi.  ;  Athen.  i.  p.  15.,  xiv. 
p.  631. 

*  Boeckb,  Fiagm.  Pind.  p.  596.  aq.  ^  xviii.  590.  sqq. 


Cii.  II.  §3.  HYPORCHEM.  71 

revolving  in  a  circle  around  the  minstrel,  who  seated 
in  the  midst  accompanies  their  motions  with  voice 
and  lyre ;    sometimes    in   prolonged    file   advancing 
and  retiring  to  and  fro,  while  two  chief  dancers,  or 
leaders  of  the  chorus,  perform  their  evolutions  in  the 
centre.     In  the  Odyssey^  the  same  performance,  in- 
cluding   the   two   independant   dancers    or   leaders, 
takes  place  in  the  hall  of  Menelaus.     In  the  Homeric 
hymn  to  Apollo^,  the  dance  of  the  divine  chorus  in 
Olympus  is  almost  identical  with  that  of  the  Iliad. 
The  chorus  or  circle  is  composed  of  female  deities 
alone,  Venus,  the  Graces,  Diana,  Hebe,  and  the  Hours; 
Apollo  acts  as  musician ;  while   Mars  and  Mercury 
figure  as  chief  dancers.     In  the  Delian  hyporchem  of 
later  times,  as  described  by  Lucian^,  the  chorus  as 
in  the  Shield  consists  of  youths  and  maidens;   while 
certain  of  the  more  accomplished  artists  are  said  to 
perform  "  the  hyporchem ; "  a  term  here  denoting,  as 
both  the  spirit  of  the  text  and  the  native  commen- 
tators imply,  the  functions  of  the  chief  dancers  or 
gesticulators  in  Homer's  description.     From  the  o-e- 
neral  tenor  of  these  accounts  it  also  results,  that  the 
ofiice  of  the  latter  class  of  performers  consisted,  in 
great  part  at  least,  of  the  dramatic  action  described 
by  Plutarch  as  entering  so  largely  into  the  compo- 
sition of  the   hyporchem.     Athenajus*  also   charac- 
terises the  hyporchematic  dance  as  shadowing  forth, 
by  mimic  gesticulations,  the  words  of  the  song  by 
which  it  was  accompanied  ;  and  the  choristers  of  the 
Delian  festival,  in  the  Delian  hymn  to  ApoUo  ^,  are 
made  to  boast  of  their  skill  in  imitating  the  voices 
and  gestures  of  men. 

>  IV.  17.  ^  Hymn.  Ap.  Pyth.  16.  sqq.  3  j)^  ^.^^^^^  ^j^^  ^^-^ 

conf.  Allien,  i.  p.  15.  •*  Loc.  cit.  ^  162. 

F   4 


72  ORDERS    OF    LYRIC    PERFORMANCE.        Book  IIL 

The  remote  origin  or  "  invention  "  of  the  hypor- 
chem,  like  that  of  the  paBan  in  its  lyric  form,  is 
traced  in  the  popular  notices  of  the  antients  ^  to 
Crete ;  and  this  view  is  in  so  far  supported  by 
Homer,  that  he  describes  the  sculptured  chorus  of 
the  Shield  as  identical  with  that  represented  on 
another  older  work  of  art  executed  by  Daedalus  for 
the  Cretan  Ariadne.^  Daedalus  however,  by  refe- 
rence to  the  foregoing  illustrations  of  the  hyporchem, 
may  here  safely  be  considered  in  his  Panhellenic 
rather  than  his  local  capacity,  as  eponyme  of  the 
inventive  genius  of  all  Greece  rather  than  of  Crete 
alone.  The  other  tradition  of  the  "  invention  "  of 
the  hyporchem  by  the  Cretan  Thaletas^,  must  refer 
either  to  the  early  fabulous  personality  of  that  musi- 
cian, or  to  the  subsequent  adaptation  of  the  per- 
formance by  the  latter  Cretan  artist  to  the  more 
refined  lyric  forms  of  accompaniment. 

The  chief  recorded  authors  of  hyporchematic  odes 
during  this  period  were  Thaletas,  and  Xenodamus  of 
Cithera"*;  but  no  remains  of  their  works  have  been 
preserved.  The  extant  specimens  of  the  immediately 
succeeding  period  emanate  from  its  most  celebrated, 
poets,  Simonides,  Pindar,  Pratinas,  Bacchylides,  with 
several  of  whom  the  hyporchem  was  a  favourite  style. 

Although  the  dance  was  the  fundamental,  and  pro- 
bably an  indispensable  feature  of  the  hyporchem  in 
its  earlier  stages,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  its 
lyric  element  was  afterwards  separately  cultivated. 
The  hyporchems  described   in  later  times  as  com- 

s. 

»  Sosibius  ap.  Schol.  Find.  Pytli.  ii.  127. 

*  H.  xvxu. ;  conf.  xvi.  617.,  Athen.  ad  loc.  v.  p.  181. 
3  Schol.  Find.  Fyth.  Ibid. 

*  Flut.  de  Mus.  ix. ;  Schol.  Find.  Fyth.  ii.  127. 


Ch.  II.  §  4.  PROSODIUM.  73 

posed  in  honour  of  private  individuals,  could  hardly 
be  destined  for  orchestic  exhibition.  The  citation, 
therefore,  of  Pindar  by  some  authorities^  as  the 
"  inventor "  of  the  hyporchem,  alludes  probably, 
to  his  having  been  considered  the  first  author  of 
hyporchematic  odes  in  the  purely  poetical  or  literary 
sense  of  the  term. 

PROSODIUM.       PARTHENIA.       DAPHNEPHORICA. 

4.  The  prosodion  was  the  hymn  sung  by  the  Prosodmm. 
choristers  in  their  procession  to  the  altar  or  sanc- 
tuary. Although  this  order  of  composition  must 
have  been  connected  -with  the  service  of  every  deity 
of  whose  rites  processional  movements  formed  a  part, 
its  early  culture  and  chief  popularity  were  concen- 
trated around  the  worship  of  Apollo.  The  prosodion, 
accordingly,  is  occasionally  classed  under  the  general 
head  of  Pasan,  by  the  special  title  of  Prosodiac,  or 
Processional,  paean.  Like  the  kindred  order  of  sa- 
cred odes,  the  nome  and  paean  proper,  it  was  com- 
posed in  the  earlier  epochs  of  its  cultivation  in 
hexameter  measure.  Such  apparently  was  the  style 
of  the  celebrated  Delian  prosodium  of  Eumelus,  the 
earliest  composition  with  which  the  name  Prosodium 
is  connected.^  Afterwards,  when  the  lyric  school  of 
art  acquired  the  ascendant,  and  the  dance  became 
popular  even  in  these  graver  processional  solemni- 
ties^, lyric  numbers  were  exclusively  preferred.  The 
prosodia  of  Pindar,  the  oldest  of  which  any  consider- 
able remains  have  been  preserved,  are  chiefly  in  the 
same  grave  Dorian  measure  as  the  greater  part  of 

1  Clem.  Alex.  Str.  i.  p.  308.  Sylb. 

-  Procl.   Chi-est.  p.  382. ;    conf.   supra,  Vol.  II.  p.   452.  sq. ;  Boeckb, 
Fragm.  Find.  p.  586. 

'  Xeiioph.  Anab.  v.  ix.,  vi.  i. 


74 


ORDERS    OF    LYRIC    PERFORMANCE.        Book  HI. 


rarthcnia. 


Daphne- 
phorica. 


his  epinician  odes.  This  measure,  accordingly,  is 
described  as  the  proper  rhythm  of  the  prosodion.^ 
The  accompaniment  of  the  flute,  as  usual  in  festive 
movements,  was  preferred  to  that  of  the  harp,  cus- 
tomary in  the  stationary  choral  rites.^ 

To  the  head  of  prosodia  belongs  in  part  the  or- 
der of  composition  entitled  Parthenia^,  or  "virginal 
songs."  This  title  however  comprises  two  different 
kinds  of  ode :  first,  processional  or  sacrificial  songs, 
sung  as  their  name  denotes  by  virgins,  in  honour 
of  certain  deities  ;  secondly,  songs  in  honour  of  those 
same  youthful  members  of  the  female  sex.^  The 
parthenia  of  the  first  class  may  therefore  be  charac- 
terised as  sacred ;  those  of  the  second  as  profane,  or 
secular. 

The  sacred  parthenia  were  substantially  hymns, 
paeans,  or  prosodia,  as  the  object  or  occasion  might 
require.  Their  distinctive  feature,  as  compared  with 
other  compositions  of  the  same  class,  seems  to  have 
been  little  more  than  what  it  were  natural  to  ex- 
pect would  be  imparted  to  them  by  the  genius  of 
the  performers.  That  feature  is  described,  accord- 
ingly, as  a  blending  of  feminine  grace  and  tender- 
ness with  devotional  solemnity.^  Hence  may  be 
explained  the  great  popularity  of  this  style  of  com- 
position with  most  of  the  leading  melic  poets,  from 
Alcman  downwards.^  Among  the  religious  ceremo- 
nies in  which  these  parthenia  were  introduced,  the 


1  Plut.  de  Mus.  XVIII. 

-  Didym.  ap.  Etym.  M.  v.  vfivos ;  Procl.  Chrest.  p.  382,  Gaisf. 

^  Athen.  xiv.  p.  631. 

*  Schol.   Aristoph.    Av.    920.  ;    Suid.    v.  nap0fyf7a ;  Procl.   Chrestom. 
p.  380.  Gaisf. 

^  Dion.  Hal.  de  adm.  vi  die.  Demosth.  ed.  Keisk.  vol.  iii.  p.  1073. ; 
conf.  Plut.  de  Mus.  xvii. 

*  Plut.  de  Mus.  xvu. 


Ch.  II.  §  4.     PARTHENIA.   DAPHNEPHORICA.        75 

only  one  of  which  a  distinct  account  ^  has  been  trans- 
mitted is  the  Daphnephorica,  or  feast  of  the  Laurel 
branches,  celebrated  at  Thebes  in  honour  of  Apollo 
Ismenius.  In  this  festivity  a  chorus  of  young 
maidens,  headed  by  a  high  priest  of  equally  tender 
age,  selected  annually  for  the  office  from  one  of  the 
first  families  in  the  city,  marched  or  danced  in  pro- 
cession, bearing  laurel  branches  for  the  decoration  of  a 
mystical  statue,  or  cippus,  of  the  god.  The  rite  was 
traced  back  in  Theban  tradition  to  the  remotest 
period  of  mythical  antiquity;  and  Hercules  is  said 
to  have  taken  his  annual  turn  of  office  as  juvenile 
leader  of  the  train.  The  parthenia  sung  on  this,  and 
probably  on  the  same  or  similar  laurel  processions  at 
Athens  and  elsewhere,  were  distinguished  by  the 
title  of  Daphnephorica^,  common  to  the  ceremony 
itself.  Under  this  title  were  ranged,  as  a  separate 
head,  a  portion  of  the  three  books  into  which  the 
parthenia  of  Pindar  were  divided.^  Parthenia  were 
also  performed  in  honour  of  Diana  from  the  days  of 
Homer  downwards^,  and  the  sacred  parthenia  of 
Sparta  seem  to  have  been  limited  to  the  worship  of 
that  goddess.^ 

The  other  class  of  parthenia,  performed  not  by, 
but  in  honour  of,  the  virgins,  though  not  properly 
connected  with  religious  ceremonial,  was  also  origi- 
nally destined  for  public  festive  occasions.  It  was 
this  distinction  which,  together  with  a  superior 
purity  and  dignity  of  style  and  sentiment,  consti- 
tuted them  a  different  order  of  composition  from  the 
ordinary  erotica  or  love- songs.     So  marked  a  tribrte 

'  Procl.  Chrestom.  p.  385.  sq.  Gaisf. ;  Pausan.'ix.  x.  4. 

^  Procl.  loc.  cit. 

2  Suid.  V.  ntV5 ;  conf.  Boeckh,  Fragm.  Pind.  p.  590. 

*  II.  XVI.  180.  sqq.  &  Paus.  m.  x.  8.,  iv.  xvi.  5. 


76  ORDERS    OF   LYRIC    PERFORMANCE.        Book  III. 

of  respect  and  homage  to  the  female  part  of  the 
community,  may  seem  but  little  in  unison  with  the 
general  tenor  of  the  social  relations  between  the 
sexes  in  Greece,  relations  partaking  but  slightly  of 
the  spirit  of  romantic  gallantry  prevalent  in  the 
earlier  stages  of  modern  poetical  literature.  The 
anomaly  explains  itself  by  the  consideration  that  this 
order  of  parthenia  was  apparently  not  only  of  Spartan 
origin,  but  limited  solely  or  chiefly  to  Spartan  poets 
and  festivals.  It  affords,  consequently,  a  marked  and 
interesting  illustration  of  the  difference  between  the 
social  position  enjoyed  by  the  female  citizens  of  this 
republic,  and  that  allotted  to  them  in  other  parts  of 
Greece.  The  Spartan  dames  and  damsels,  together 
with  their  share  in  the  gymnastic  as  well  as  festive 
ceremonial  of  the  state,  claimed  and  enjoyed  a 
corresponding  share  of  the  dignity  and  privileges 
elsewhere  appropriated  to  the  men.^  This  com- 
munity of  public  duty  and  privilege,  with  their  own 
enthusiastic  patriotism,  and  the  jealous  superintend- 
ance  exercised  by  them  over  that  of  their  admirers 
and  male  relatives,  amply  entitled  them  to  a  public 
expression  of  that  amount  of  tender  homage,  which 
even  in  countries  where  romantic  love  is  least  in  the 
ascendant,  fair  woman  cannot  fail  to  command. 

The  earliest  recorded  author  of  parthenia  is  Ale- 
man,  with  whom  this  branch  of  composition  in  both 
its  varieties  was  an  especial  favourite.^  The  extant 
specimens  of  his  collection  are  chiefly  of  the  secular 
kind,  of  which  they  also  appear  to  be  the  only  relics. 
The  parthenia  of  Bacchylides,  Simonides,  and  Pindar, 
with  the  latter  of  whom  this  was  a  favourite  style  of 

'  Pint.  vit.  Lycurg. ;  conf.  Welck.  Prasf.  ad  Alcm.  p.  10. 
^  Welck.  loc.  cit. 


Ch.  II.  §5.  DITHYRAMB.  77 

composition,  belong  exclusively  to  the  sacred  class. 
No  entire  ode  of  either  description  has  been  pre- 
served. The  parthenia  of  Pindar  are  appealed  to  by 
the  antient  critics  ^  as  samples  of  his  power  of  infu- 
sing grace  and  tenderness  into  the  severe  dignity  of 
the  Dorian  Muse;  which  characteristic  is  confirmed 
by  their  existing  remains. 

DITHYRAMB.       LYRIC    TRAGEDY. 

5.  This  celebrated  branch  of  composition,  as  the  Dithyramb 
parent  of  the  Attic  tragedy,  assumes  a  still  greater  J^esffom. 
degree  of  importance  and  interest,  than  would  even 
otherwise  justly  attach  to  it  on  account  of  its  great 
popularity  and  extensive  influence  on  the  style  and 
taste  of  every  period  of  Greek  poetical  literature. 

The  dithyramb  in  its  earliest  form  was  the  hymn 
of  Bacchus^,  as  the  p^ean  was  the  hymn  of  Apollo. 
The  more  joyous,  even  wild  and  fantastic  attributes 
of  the  former  deity,  were  supported  by  a  correspond- 
ing license  in  his  poetical  and  musical  rites.  The 
dithyramb  consequently  was,  in  every  stage  of  its 
cultivation,  the  type  of  the  turbulent  and  enthusi- 
astic element  of  Greek  sacred  music.     The  existinar 

o 

notices  of  this  order  of  composition  are  of  compara- 
tively recent  date ;  nor  is  there  any  allusion  by  Homer, 
Hesiod,  or  other  primitive  authorities,  to  the  festive 
rites  of  Bacchus  as  popular  in  their  day.  That  the 
dithyramb  however,  in  its  simpler  melic  form  of 
Dionysiac  hymn  or  paean,  was  already  a  cultivated 
branch  of  lyric  art  in  the  age  of  Archilochus  appears 
from  a  still  extant  distich  of  that  poet^,  in  which  he 

^  Dion.  Hal.  de  adm.  vi  die.  Demosth.  Reisk.  p.  1073. 

2  Plat,  de  Legg.  p.  700. 

3  Frg.  72.  Bergk. ;  conf.  Athen.  xiv.  p.  628. 


of  Arion. 


78  ORDERS    OF   LYRIC    PERFORMANCE.        Book  TTT. 

mentions  it  by  name  as  the  "  beautiful  song  of  Dio- 
nysus," and  prides  himself  on  his  skill  in  its  execution. 
These  verses  are  in  a  lively  vein  of  trochaic  tetrameter, 
the  same  measure  which  Aristotle  ^  describes  as  ori- 
ginally proper  to  the  dithyramb  :  they  may  hence  be 
presumed  to  have  been  themselves  the  exordium  of 
a  dithyrambic  ode  or  chorus. 
Dithyramb  In  the  generation  subsequent  to  Archilochus,  a 
more  extended  and  artificial  character  was  imparted 
to  this  branch  of  lyric  performance  by  Arion,  the 
celebrated  Lesbian  musician^,  whose  personal  adven- 
tures form  so  interesting  an  episode  in  the  romance 
of  Greek  literary  history.^  From  the  era  of  this 
minstrel  date,  accordingly,  the  subsequent  high  vogue 
and  popularity  of  the  dithyramb,  and  the  powerful 
influence  which  it  exercised  on  the  combined  arts  of 
poetry  and  music  in  Greece.  It  is  this  new  epoch  in 
its  history,  which  the  respectable  body  of  antient  au- 
thorities headed  by  Pindar  and  Herodotus  must  be 
understood  to  have  in  view,  who  quote  Arion,  in  the 
face  of  the  above  passage  of  Archilochus,  as  "  in- 
ventor "  of  the  dithyramb.  These  notices,  therefore, 
may  be  added  to  the  many  examples  which  the 
history  of  this  period  supplies  of  confusion  between 
the  terms  inventor  and  improver.^ 

1  Poetic.  IV.  (Griif.)  ;  conf.  Khet.  in.  i.  p.  139.  Tauchn. 

^  Herodot.  i.  xxiii. ;  Find.  01.  xiii.  25. ;  Aristot.  ap.  Procl.  Chrest. 
p.  382.  Gaisf. ;  Hellanic.  et  Dicsearch.  ap.  Schol.  Aristoph.  Av.  1403. ; 
Dio.  Chrys.  or.  kxxvii.  init. ;  Suid.  v.  'Apiouy.  ^  See  Ch.  iv. 

*  How  little  confidence  can  be  placed  in  the  letter  of  such  statements 
is  clear  from  the  fact  of  the  same  Pindar,  by  whom  this  invention  is  in 
one  passage  ascribed  to  Corinth,  traces  it  in  another  to  Thebes,  and  in  a 
third  to  Naxos.  (Schol.  ad  ol.  xni.  25.)  All  three  passages,  it  is  evident, 
must  be  taken  in  a  merely  figurative  sense.  In  the  first  Thebes  is  pre- 
ferred, as  the  birthplace  of  Dionysus  ;  in  the  second  Naxos,  as  the 
favourite  seat  of  his  worship  ;  in  the  third  Corinth,  as  mother  of  the 
more  artificial  arrangement  of  his  festive  rite. 


Ch.  II.  §6.       DITHYRAMB    OF    ARION.      DORIC    MIMES.       79 

6.  The  changes,  however,  effected  by  Arion  in  the  noric 
prhnitive  form  of  the  dithyramb  were  such  as  in 
some  degree  to  constitute  it,  in  his  hands,  an  alto- 
gether new  rite  in  honour  of  Dionysus.  These 
changes  consisted  in  a  combination  of  two  previously 
distinct  orders  of  Bacchic  festivity,  each  probably,  in 
its  separate  capacity,  of  very  antient  date.  The  one 
was  the  old  simple  dithyramb,  or  Dionysiac  paean, 
sung  by  Archilochus  and  the  companions  of  his 
revelries.  Upon  this  purely  musical  or  poetical 
element,  was  engrafted  another  kind  of  entertain- 
ment of  a  more  lively  mimetic  or  dramatic  character. 
This  was  a  grotesque  dance,  the  performers  in  which, 
disguised  as  Satyrs  or  Silenes,  enlivened  the  human 
portion  of  the  solemnity  mth  gestures  and  ejacula- 
tions, in  imitation  of  those  actions  or  adventures  of 
the  god  which  supplied  the  common  subject  of  cele- 
bration. The  ceremony  as  thus  compounded  was 
under  the  direction  of  an  exarchon  \  who,  reserving 
certain  more  important  functions  for  himself,  super- 
intended the  proper  execution  of  the  whole  perform- 
ance.^ The  Satyr-dance,  and  other  more  fantastic 
ingredients  of  the  festival,  belonged  to  a  class  of  rustic 
mimes,  or  rude  dramatic  entertainments,  connected 
from  a  remote  period,  especially  among  the  Dorian 
tribes ",  with  the  popular  rites  of  Bacchus.  The 
origin  of  these  mimes  was  carried  by  tradition  as  far 
back  as  the  youth  of  the  god  himself,  who  is  reported 

'  Aristot.  Poet.  iv.  Graf. ;  Aristid.  Orat.  torn.  i.  p.  228.  ed  Jebb. 

^  Simonides,  frg.  148.  Bergk.,  alludes  to  the  chorus  of  his  dithyramb 
as  fifty  in  number.  But  it  seems  doubtful  if  the  practice  of  his  age  can 
afford  a  fair  criterion  for  that  of  Arion.     Conf.  Pollux,  iv.  110. 

3  Aristot.  Poet.  lu.  ed.  Graf. ;  Athen.  xiv.  p.  630.  sq. ;  Dion.  Hal. 
Ant.  Rom.  vii.  p.  1491.  Reisk. ;  Procl.  Chrestom.  p.  383. ;  Miiller,  Dor. 
vol.  II.  p.  343.  sqq. ;  Grysar  de  Dor.  Comoed.  p.  18.  sqq. ;  conf.  Welck. 
Nachtr.  zur  ^sch.  Tril.  p.  222.  sqq. 


80  ORDERS    OF    LYRIC    PERFORMANCE.        Book  TIT. 

to  have  been  attended  on  liis  Indian  expedition  by 
a  troop  of  followers  skilled  in  their  performance.^ 
Among  the  Lacedaemonians  they  were  called  Di- 
malea  (frightful),  and  the  chief  actors  Mimeli  or 
Dicelistas  -  (mimics  or  mountebanks).  Part  of  the 
ceremony,  as  practised  among  the  same  Lacedae- 
monians, seems  to  have  consisted  in  the  burlesque 
representation  of  roguish  or  humorous  points  of  cha- 
racter, by  equally  burlesque  personifications  of  the 
individuals  or  classes  chiefly  distinguished  in  real  life 
by  the  peculiarities  satirised.^  These  entertainments 
were  common,  under  other  varieties  of  name,  in  the 
neiojhbourin;]:  Dorian  states.  Such  were  the  Phalle- 
phoria  of  Sicyon,  where  the  actors,  instead  of  Dicelistae, 
were  called  Autocabdali  ■* ;  elsewhere  they  bore  the 
name  of  Iambi. ^  A  similar  form  of  mimic  drollery 
practised  in  the  neighbouring  Megara  was  imported 
by  Susarion,  a  citizen  of  that  town,  into  the  Attic 
demus  of  Icaria,  a  principal  seat  of  the  Attic  Diony- 
siaca:  and  was  ultimately  matured,  under  the  auspices 
of  Attic  genius,  into  the  regular  Comedy,  as  was  the 
more  elegant  dithyramb,  under  the  same  Attic  in- 
fluence, into  the  nobler  Tragic  drama.  Phlius,  another 
Dorian  city  of  Northern  Peloponnesus,  advanced  a 
like  claim  to  priority  of  invention  in  regard  to  the  re- 
maining department  of  the  Attic  drama,  the  "  Satyr," 
as  an  emanation  from  her  own  favourite  branch  of 
Dionysiac  mummery,  a  dance  of  Satyrs,  similar  to  the 
Dimaleaof  Lacedaemon.  This  earlier  developement  of  a 

'  Diod.  Sic.  JV.  5.;  conf.  Athen.  xiv.  631. 

-  Sosib  ap.  Athen.  xiv.  p.  621.;  Pollux,  iv.  104.;  Suid.  v.  2a«7-(§ios, 
Hesych.  v.  SetKeXicrrai ;  Plut.  Lac.  Apophth.  lvii.,  vit.  Agesil.  xxi.  ; 
conf.  Plut.  de  Legg.  p.  815  c. 

3  Athen.  xiv.  621.;  Pollux,  iv.  104,  105. 

*  Athen.  xiv.  p.  621.;  Suid.  v.  <pa\\o(popoi.  *  Athen.  xiv.  p.  622. 


Ch.  II.  §  7.  DITHYRAMB    OF   ARION.  81 

taste  for  dramatic  representation  among  the  Dorians 
may  be  traced  in  part  to  a  peculiarity  of  their  na- 
tional manners  already  noticed,  their  fondness  for 
the  dance  as  an  ingredient  of  almost  every  kind  of 
popular  festivity  :  for  dancing,  among  all  imaginative 
races,  is  inseparable  from  some  species  of  mimic 
representation,  especially  in  the  ruder  more  grotesque 
styles  of  pei'f or  malice,  such  as  were  most  congenial 
to  Dorian  popular  taste. 

7.  Arion    is   described   as    "  the  first  who   intro-  Poeticai 
duced  the  Dionysiac  Satyrs  reciting  verses."^     Before  cai  pro- 
his  time,  therefore,  their  choric  exercises  may  have  ^Hon's"^ 
been  limited  chiefly  to  dancing   with    gesticulation,  dithyramb, 
interspersed  with  humorous  sallies^  not    necessarily 
couched  in  metrical  form.     In  his  arrano;ement  these 
sallies  assumed  a  more  distinctly  dramatic  form  of 
response  or  dialogue.^     It  may  also  be  presumed,  that 
the  original  rudeness  of  the  Satyric  choristers,  both 
as  to  equipment  and  action,  was   partially  softened 
down  on  their  selection  by  a  poet  of  so  fine  a  taste 
as   Arion   for   the   rehearsal   of  lyric   compositions, 
which  with  all  their  turbulent  license    were  distin- 
guished for  elegance  and  refinement.     The  more  pro- 
perly poetical  functions  of  the  ceremony  belonged  to 
the  exarchon  or  ballet-master.     Those  functions  com- 
prised, besides  the  general  direction  of  the  chorus, 
the  recital,  with  appropriate  prooemium  ^  and  epode  ^\ 

'  Suid.  V.  ApiW.  ^  duToo-xeSiao-TiKct.  Aristot.  Poet.  iv.  (Graf.) 

'  Diog.  Laert.  iii.  i.  34.  Tauchn. 

*  Aristot.  Rhetor,  iii.  xiv.  p.  169.  Tauchn.  Conf.  p.  171.  where  the 
prooemium  is  curiously  rlescribed,  in  figurative  illustration  of  a  different 
matter,  as  the  essential  distinction  between  the  dithyramb  of  Arion  and 
the  ruder  Doric  mimes  above  alluded  to :  toutoji/  Se  eVe/ca  Trpooi/xwu  Selrai,  fj 
KSa/j-ov  xf'P'c'   ws  avTOKa,SSu\a  (paiuerai  idv  /ti))  ^XV' 

*  Aristid.  Rh.  vol.  i.  p.  228,  ed  Oxon.  1730. 
VOL.  III.  G 


82  ORDEES    OF   LYRIC    PERFORMANCE.  Book  III 

of  some  popular  adventure  of  the  god.     This  graver 
part  of  the  solemnity  was  accompanied  or  relieved  by 
the  mimic  action  of  the  inferior  performers,  shadow- 
ing forth  the  vicissitudes  of  the  tale,  or  chiming  in, 
from  time  to  time,  with  their  own  more  humorous 
share    of  lyric  recitation.     From  all  this   it  would 
appear  that  the  essential  value  of  the  combined  en- 
tertainment consisted,  not  so  much  in  the  excellence 
of  the  poetical   composition,   as  in  the  musical   ac- 
companiment and   dramatic  spirit  of  the  execution. 
Much  may  still  have  been  extemporaneous,  at  least  in 
the  more  properly  mimic  element.     Hence  there  is  no 
notice  of  a  complete  choral  dithyramb  of  this  earlier 
class  having  been  transmitted  to  posterity  as  a  finished 
written  performance.     The  part  undertaken  by  the 
exarchon  was  probably  the  only  portion  of  the  whole 
marked  by  any  high  degree  of  poetical  artifice.     It 
may  be  presumed  therefore  that  the  "prooemia"  of 
Arion  ^,  the  only  works  of  that  poet  which,  with  the 
exception  of  some  popular  songs  or  sonnets,  appear 
to  have  survived  his  own  time,   were  specimens   of 
the  more  strictly  poetical  ingredient  of  his  dithyramb. 
It  is  easy  to  imagine  the  general  effect  of  such  an 
exhibition  as  singularly  striking  and  animated.     In 
the  centre  or  foreground  an  enthusiastic  poet,  warmed 
by  his  subject,  and  probably  by  the  inspiring  gifts  of 
the  god  of  his  celebration,  at  the  head  of  an  accom- 
plished choir,  and  surrounded  by  an  audience  highly 
susceptible,  to  say  the  least,   of  the   same   Bacchic 
influences,  chants  the  praises,  and  records  the  my- 
thical exploits,  of  the  most  brilliantly  fantastic  of 
Greek  deities,   with  all  the  power  and  harmony  of 
^olo-Doric  genius,  all  the  liveliness  of  extemporane- 

'  Suid.  V.  'Apiuv, 


Ch.  n.  §7.  DITHYRAMB    OF   ARION.  83 

ous  effect,  all  the  charm  of  musical  accompaniment ; 
while  around  or  among  the  more  dignified  actors, 
the  grotesque  participators  in  the  divine  exploits 
season  with  mimic  terrors  and  lively  ejaculations  the 
more  equable  tenor  of  the  solemnity. 

Aristotle^  describes  the  dithyramb  of  Arion  as 
antistrophic,  and  as  distinguished  by  this  peculiarity 
from  the  later  form  of  dithyramb  introduced  by 
Lasus  of  Hermione,  and  of  which  an  unlimited  variety 
of  melic  arrangement,  or  rather  of  elegant  license 
and  disorder,  formed  one  of  the  chief  characteristics. 
The  antistrophic  arrangement  is  further  described 
by  the  same  critic  as  having  been  necessary,  in  this 
earlier  stage  of  the  ceremonial,  to  secure  order 
in  the  performances  of  a  band  consisting  in  great 
part  of  a  less  scientific  class  of  choristers.  It  may 
hence  be  assumed,  that  the  Satyric  choir  was  di- 
vided, as  usual  in  the  more  refined  dramatic  prac- 
tice of  later  times,  into  two  or  more  bands  or  sub- 
divisions, Avho  responded  by  their  movements  and 
voices  to  each  other ;  the  prooemia  and  epodes,  the 
graver  more  stationary  parts  of  the  solemnity,  being 
reserved  for  the  exarchon.  The  claims  therefore 
of  Arion  to  the  honour  of  inventing  or  perfecting  the 
antistrophic  order  of  composition,  may  be  considered 
as  equal  if  not  prior  to  those  of  Stesichorus.  The 
precedence  usually  awarded  to  the  latter  poet  may  be 
due  partly  to  his  having  imparted  a  greater  degree 
of  regularity  to  his  choric  arrangements,  partly  to 
his  having  applied  them  to  a  graver  more  dignified 
order  of  choral  performance.^ 

*  Problem,  xix.  15.  ;  conf.  Dion.  Hal.  de  Compos.  Verb.  xix. ;  Plut. 
de  Mus.  XII. 

-  See  supra,  p.  61. 

G   2 


84  ORDERS    OF    LYRIC    PERFORMANCE.        Book  III- 

Arion,  the  inventor  of  this  celebrated  entertain- 
ment, and  the  most  distinguished  musician  of  his 
age,  was,  like  most  of  the  other  more  illustrious  melic 
poets  or  musical  composers  of  this  period,  a  native 
of  the  isle  of  Lesbos.  This  new  and  brilliant  phasis 
therefore,  of  the  Lyric  Muse,  so  important,  not  only  in 
its  immediate  influence  but  in  its  remote  effects,  was 
another  creation  of  that  Jllolian  genius  to  which  Hel- 
las had  already  been  indebted  for  so  many  other 
steps  in  the  progress  of  her  poetical  culture.  By 
a  singular  fatality  also,  here  as  in  other  previous 
cases,  the  fruits  of  that  genius  were  elicited  upon 
Dorian  soil  and  under  Dorian  auspices.  Arion  was 
the  state  musician  of  Periander  of  Corinth,  under 
whose  patronage  his  invention  was  matured  and 
carried  into  effect.  Corinth  was  at  this  period  the 
wealthiest  and  most  flourishing  city  of  Greece,  a 
leading  member  of  the  Dorian  confederacy,  and  one 
which  prided  herself  on  blending  with  the  sterner 
features  of  the  old  national  character,  taste  and 
talent  for  those  elegant  pursuits  in  which  it  was  the 
boast  of  the  sister  Hellenic  races  to  excel.  To  foster 
these  dispositions  was  a  principal  object  of  her  pre- 
sent ruler  Periander;  a  munificent  patron  of  art  and 
literature,  from  motives  not  merely  of  taste  but  of 
policy,  as  the  means  of  softening  and  subduing  the 
minds  of  the  citizens  to  a  more  ready  submission 
to  his  sway :  and  few  such  means  could  be  better 
adapted  to  his  object  than  the  establishment  of  this 
proverbially  attractive  and  licentious  species  of  pub- 
lic amusement.  The  Doric  dialect  was  preferred 
by  Arion  to  his  native  ^Eolic  for  his  dithyramb, 
partly,  it  may  be  presumed,  as  a  natural  compli- 
ment to  the   Dorian  seat   of  the  invention,  partly 


Ca.  11.  §  8.       DITHYRAMB.       CYCLIAN   CHORUS.  85 

in  consideration  of  the  greater  prevalence  of  Do- 
rian materials  in  the  framing  of  the  rite ;  and  the 
same  dialect  maintained  its  ground  in  all  the  sub- 
sequent stages  or  phases  of  dithyrambic  composition. 
For  the  musical  accompaniment  however  the  lighter 
Phrygian  harmony  was  preferred.^  Arion  being 
himself  chiefly  celebrated  as  a  citharoedus,  or  lute- 
player,  it  may  be  presumed  that  the  prooemia,  and 
other  more  regular  parts  of  the  performance  which 
devolved  on  himself  or  his  fellow-exarchons,  were 
accompanied  by  the  lyre  or  lute '•^;  the  auletic  class 
of  instruments,  usually  preferred  in  all  Bacchic  rites, 
being  reserved  for  the  more  turbulent  orchestic  or 
mimic  portion  of  the  solemnity.^ 

8.  The  etymology  of  the  term  Dithyramb  is  in-  its  other 
volved  in  an  obscurity  which  no  effort  of  scholar-  ^^^^^' 
ship"^  has  hitherto  succeeded  in  clearing  up.     Another  cycUan 
name  familiarly  applied  to  the  invention  of  Arion  is 
that  of  Cyclian^  or  Circular  chorus.     This  title  is 
evidently  derived  from  some  peculiarity  in  the   ar- 
rangement  of  the  ceremony,   the  precise  nature  of 
which  is  not  ascertained.     It  was  one,  however,  of  so 
marked  a  character  as  to  have  obtained  prominence 
in  the  mythical  history  of  the  Lesbian  poet,  whose 
father,  in  compliment  to  the  talent  of  the  son,  bears 
the  name  of  Cycleus.^     The  interpretation  therefore 
of  the  term  generally  preferred  by   modern   critics, 
which  assumes  it  to  denote  the  mere  processional  move- 

^  Aristot.  Polit.  viii.  vii. ;  Procl.  Chrest.  p.  383.  Gaisf. 

^  So  Athenteus,  v.  p.  180.  *  Pollux,  iv.  81. 

*  Conf.  Welck.  Nachtr.  zur  Trilog.  p.  191. ;  Ulrlci,  Gesch.  der  Gr. 
Dichtk.  vol.  II.  p.  479, 

*  Hellanic.  et  Dicasarcb.  ap.  Schol.  Aristoph.  Av.  1404. ;  Scliol.  Pind. 
01.  VIII.  25.  ;  Suid.  V.  'Api'aii/ ;  conf.  Procl.  Chrest.  p.  382. ;  Auctt.  ap. 
Bentl.  Opusc.  p.  319.  sqq. 

^  Suid.  V.  'Aplwv;  conf.  infra,  Ch.  iv.  §  8. 

G  3 


or  Goat 
6ong, 


86  ORDERS    OF    LYRIC    PERFORMANCE.        Book  UI. 

ments  round  the  altar  during  the  sacrifice  to  the  god, 
is  far  from  satisfactory;  such  movements  being  a  cere- 
mony common  to  the  ordinary  sacrificial  rites  of  every 
deity  where  choric  performances  Avere  admitted.^     It 
must,  therefore,  obviously  have  been  in  some  more  spe- 
cific sense  that  the  definition  Circular  was  appropriated 
to  the  dithyrambic  chorus.     It  may  have  indicated 
either,  as  one  authority  seems  to  imply  ^,  some  pecu- 
liar kind  of  wheeling  or  circuitous  movement  by  the 
choristers,   or  some  similar  peculiarity  in  the  mode 
in  which  their  parts  were  arranged  and  distributed. 
Tragcedia,         A  third  title,  of  Still  higher  celebrity  in  subsequent 
ages,   by  which   these    Corinthian    Dionysiaca   were 
designated,  is  that  of  Tragcedia,  or  song  of  the  goat- 
This  name,  like  that  of  Dithyramb,  was  neither  first 
suggested  by,  nor  at  this  early  period  limited  to,  the 
invention  of  Arion,  but  was  common  to  most  of  the 
other  solely  or  chiefly  Dorian  solemnities,  above  no- 
ticed, in  honour  of  the  same  deity.^     It  was  generally 
derived  from  the  goat  (Tragos),  awarded  as  prize  to 
the  victor  among  the  rival  poets  or  musicians  who, 
according  to  popular  custom,  competed  on  such  occa- 
sions in  celebratins:  the  ffod."^     Other  commentators 
interpret  it  as  alluding  to  the  sacrifice  of  the  goat^, 
the  favourite  victim  at  the  altar  of  Bacchus.     A  third 
class  of  authorities  would  have  it   to  be,  in  a  more 
direct  sense,  the  song  of  the  Satyrs  themselves,   or 

'   Conf.  Suid.  V.  KVK\ia.  ^  Pollux,  IV.  104.  inrorpoxa  opxovfievoi. 

^  Herodot.  v.  67.;  Aristot.  Rhet.  m.  1.;  Aristoph.  ap.  Athen.  xii. 
p.  55 1 .,  conf.  XIV.  p.  630. ;  Suid.  vv.  &€(nris,  et  oi)8ev  wphs  tov  Aiowarov ; 
Boeckh,  Staatsh.  der  Ath.  vol.  ii.  p.  362.  sqq. ;  Corp.  Inscr.  Gr.  vol.  i. 
p.  765. ;  Welck.  Naclitr.  zur  Tril.  p.  239.  sqq. 

*  Dioscor.  in  Anthol.  Pal.  vii.  ep.  410. ;  Auctt.  ap.  Bentl.  Opusc.  p. 
315.  sq. ;  Diomed.  Putsch,  p.  484. 

^  Ap.  Welck.  ^scb.  Tril.  p.  240. ;  Bentl.  loc.  cit. 


Ch.  II.  §  8.  DITHYRAMBIC    TRAGCEDIA.  87 

goat-like  choristers  who  officiated.^  The  name  occurs 
frequently  in  connexion  with  the  tragic  choruses 
of  Sicyon,  at  all  periods  a  distinguished  seat  of 
Bacchic  festivity  both  musical  and  mimic.  Among 
these  Sicyonian  rites  the  most  remarkable  is  that 
familiarly  known  as  the  "  Tragoedia  of  Epigenes,"  ^ 
which,  though  advancing  extravagant  claims  to  my- 
thical antiquity,  was  probably  but  a  variety  of  the 
dithyramb  of  Arion.  It  is  apparently  the  same 
"  tragic  chorus"  mentioned  by  Herodotus^  as  having 
been  diverted  by  the  Sicyonians,  at  a  very  remote 
period,  from  the  celebration  of  Dionysus  to  that  of 
their  national  hero  Adrastus,  but  restored  again  by 
Clisthenes  (595  e.g.)  to  its  proper  subject.  This  text 
of  Herodotus  is  the  only  passage  of  the  antients  where 
allusion  occurs  to  a  "tragic,"  in  the  now  familiar  use  of 
the  term,  or  in  other  words  a  mournful,  ingredient  as 
entering  into  the  composition  of  the  primitive  Dorian 
mimes.  It  has  hence  been  appealed  to  by  several 
modern  authors^  who,  by  a  misconception  it  is  ap- 
prehended of  the  original  spirit  of  those  entertain- 
ments, have  assumed  the  term  Tragoedia  and  its 
cognates,  as  applied  by  the  antient  critics  to  the 
dithyramb  of  Arion,  to  indicate  even  that  solemnity 
to  have  been  of  a  mournful  or  pathetic  character.  It 
were  in  itself  a  fallacious  inference,  that  because 
the  choric  mimes  of  Sicyon,  when  transferred  by  a 
capricious  populace  from  the  rites  of  Bacchus  to  those 
of  Adrastus  (a  hero  whose  whole  career  was  a  series  of 
afflicting  incidents),  had  assumed  a  mournful  charac- 

^  Etym.  M.  v.  Tpay<i>dia. 

^   Suid.   VV.    QeffTTis    et   ovdev   irphs  rhu   AiSvvffov ;    Apostol.   V.    ovS,  ir.  t. 
Atuvvffou ;  conf.  Gaisf.  Parcem.  Gr.  p.  153.  356.  ^  v.  Ixvii. 

1  Midi.  Hist,  of  Gr.  Lit.  p.  290. ;  coiif.  Smith's   Diot.  of  Ant.  art. 
Tragoedia. 

G  4 


88  ORDERS    OF   LYRIC    PERFORMANCE.        Book  III 

ter,  tliey  must  in  their  original  Dionysiac  form  have 
been  marked  by  similarly  doleful  features.     Bacchus 
was  indeed  himself  a  sufferer  as  well  as  an  actor  in 
some  of  his  numerous  adventures;  which  circumstance 
may  possibly  have  suggested  an  occasional  admixture 
of  mimic  distress,  though  probably  in  grotesque  or 
burlesque    form,    in    the   compositions   where   those 
adventures  were  celebrated.     But  every  thing  leads 
to  the  belief  that  the  proper  characteristic  of  the 
Bacchic  dithyramb,  especially  as  remodelled  by  Arion, 
was,   like   that  of  the  god  and  his  worshippers,  an 
exuberance  of  jovial  excitement.     The  terms  Tragedy 
and    Tragic    were   therefore,   in    the    spirit  of  their 
early  application  to  these  histrionic  goat-songs,  nearly 
synonym^ous  with  drama  and  dramatic  ;   and  are,  in 
fact,    pointedly    described   by  the  antient  critics  as 
common  in  this  sense  to  both  tragedy  and  comedy.^ 
When  the   same    dramatic    forms    were   transferred 
from   Bacchus  to  the  adventures   of  human   heroes 
Avhose  destinies  were  marked  by  incidents  of  a  really 
pathetic  character,  and  were  dramatised  exclusively 
by  human  actors,  the  tone  of  the  performance  natu- 
rally adapted  itself  to  that  of  the  subject.     The  term 
Tragic    thus   gradually    acquired    its    now    classical 
import,  as  distinguished  from   Comic,    which   by  a 
parallel  train  of  association  was  appropriated  to  the 
humorous  branches  of  the  same  art. 
Transition         9^  j^  were  foreign  to  the  present  subiect,  to  ana- 

troni  the  i         -i        1  •  r-  •    • 

dithyramb    lysc   lu    detail   thc    successivc    stages    of    transition 

tragedy.       by  whicli  the  dithyrambic  tragedy  was  transformed 

into  the  regular  drama  of  the  Athenian  theatre.     The 

'  Aristot.  ap.  ULrici,  Gesch.  der  Griech.  Dichtk.  vol.  11.  p.  584.  It 
is  not  easy,  certainly,  to  imagine  any  thing  really  pathetic  in  the  per- 
formances of  a  chorus  of  Satyrs  and  Silenes. 


Ch.  n.  §  9.      TRANSITION   TO    ATTIC    TRAGEDY.  89 

following  concise,  and  doubtless  authentic  epitome  of 
those  stages  by  Aristotle  ^,  with  a  very  few  illustra- 
tive remarks,  will  here  suffice. 

"  Tragedy  derives  its  origin  from  the  exarchon  of 
the  dithyrambic  chorus ;  Comedy  from  the  leader  of 
the  phallic  chorus.  The  former  branch  of  poetical 
art,  after  many  changes,  assumed  its  present  character. 
iEschylus  added  a  second  actor  to  the  single  per- 
former of  old,  transferring  the  more  important  func- 
tions of  the  solemnity  from  the  chorus  to  the  dialogue. 
Sophocles  added  a  third  actor  with  scenic  decorations. 
The  inferior  class  of  subjects,  with  their  Satyric 
mummeries,  gave  place  to  dignity  and  pomjD ;  and, 
instead  of  the  trochaic  measure,  formerly  preferred 
as  best  adapted  to  the  melic  and  orchestic  spirit  of 
the  dithyramb,  the  iambus  was  substituted,  as  that 
which  most  nearly  corresponds  to  the  tone  and  cadence 
of  familiar  dialogue."  ^ 

The  earlier  stages  of  alteration  here  indicated  by 
Aristotle  were,  it  may  be  presumed,  first  the  intro- 
duction of  other  subjects  besides  the  adventures  of 
Bacchus,  and,  as  a  probable  and  necessary  conse- 
quence, the  substitution  in  the  chorus  of  a  different 
class  of  actors  for  the  Satyrs.  Traces  of  such  in- 
novations are  already  perceptible  at  Sicyon,  in  the 
transfer,  as  above  mentioned,  by  Epigenes,  of  the 
honours  of  the  tragic  chorus  from  Bacchus  to  Adra- 
stus.^     The  fir^t  step  in  the  transition  from  exarchon 

'  Poetic.  IV. ;  conf.  nott.  Griif.  ad  loc;  Diog.  Laert.  in.  i.  34.  Tauchn. 

-  Conf.  Rhetor,  m.  i.,  Poetic,  iv. ;  Cic.  Orat.  ed.  Tauchn.  p.  399.  sqq. 

^  Herodot.  v.  Ixvii.  ;  Suid.  v.  Qfo-iris ;  Suid.  Phot,  et  Apostol.  v.  oi55ej' 
irphs  Thv  Aiovvffov ;  Chamtel.  ap.  Apostol.  ibid. ;  Gaisf.  Parcemiogr.  Gr. 
p.  153.  Bacchidas,  an  antient  poet  of  uncertain  date  (ap.  Athen.  xiv. 
p.  629.),  boasts  of  having  instituted  "a  chorus  of  men"  for  the  Sicy- 
onians  ;  and  Themistius  on  these  grounds  claims,  in  opposition  to  Ari- 


90  ORDERS    OF   LYRIC    PERFORMANCE.        Book  m. 

to  actor  was  the  extension  of  the  functions  of  the 
former  from  those  of  chief  chorister  to  those  of  reci- 
tative poet,  narrating  the  actions  rather  than  singing 
the  praises  of  the  god  or  hero  celebrated.  Another 
stc})  in  advance  would  be  to  dramatise  the  main 
action  by  making  the  actor  assume  the  person  of  the 
leading  hero,  and  possibly,  in  succession,  of  one  or 
more  participators  in  his  adventures ;  the  histrionic 
effect  being  maintained  by  dialogue,  from  time  to 
time,  between  the  actor  himself  and  the  chorus. 
Such  is  the  state  to  which  the  dithyrambic  tragedy, 
when  transferred  to  Attica,  appears  to  have  been 
brought  by  Thespis  (535  B.C.),  and  in  which  it  was 
delivered  over  by  him  to  ^Eschylus  and  Phrynichus. 
In  their  hands  the  dramatic  acquired  that  complete 
ascendant  over  the  lyric  element  of  the  performance, 
which  was  maintained  or  extended  in  every  subse- 
quent stage  of  its  progress. 
Later  Attic  Not  loug  after  the  extension  given  to  the  dramatic 
element  of  the  Corinthian  dithyramb  in  the  Attic 
Dionysiaca,  an  important  modification  of  its  lyric 
element  was  effected  (503  B.C.)  by  Lasus  of  Her- 
mione  \  Pindar's  master  in  the  art  of  music.  By 
Lasus,  as  by  Thespis,  a  chorus  of  men  was  substi- 
tuted for  Arion's  chorus  of  Satyrs;  and  the  subjects 
of  celebration  were  extended  from  the  adventures  of 
Bacchus  to  those  of  other  mythological  personages. 
Greater  variety,  with  a  higher  degree  of  refinement, 
was  also  imparted  to  the  melic  style  of  the  perfor- 
mance,  both  in  respect  to  rhythm  and  melody:    a 

stotle,  the  first  invention  of  "tragedy"  for  that  people.  (Orat.  xxvii. ; 
conf.  Ilerm.  ad  Aristot.  Poet,  in.)  Others  claim  a  similar  precedence  for 
them  iu  respect  to  comedy.     (Onestes  ap.  Brunck.  Anal,  vol.'ii.  p.  289. 

1  Suid.  V.  Adaos ;  Schol.  Aristoph.  Av.  1403. ;  Clem.  Alex.  Str.  i.  p.  308. ; 
Plut.  de  Mus.  XXIX. ;  conf  Smith,  Diction,  of  Biogr.  Art.  Lasus. 


dithyramb. 


Cn.  II.  §  9.  LYRIC    TRAGEDY.  9 1 

variety  which  in  the  subsequent  vicissitudes  of  the 
"  Attic  dithyramb,"  as  that  of  Lasus  was  familiarly 
called,  degenerated  into  a  license  reprehended  by 
the  best  native  critics  as  a  subversion  of  the  fun- 
damental principles  of  the  pure  Hellenic  music.^ 
The  old  Cyclian  chorus  of  Arion  appears,  in  the 
course  of  these  vicissitudes,  after  the  innovations  of 
Thespis  and  Lasus,  to  have  forfeited  its  separate 
existence,  and  to  have  been  entirely  merged  in  its 
more  dignified  or  more  elegant  oiFspring.  No  trace 
at  least  appears  of  Satyric  performance,  in  the  strict 
sense  of  the  term,  in  the  cultivated  dithyrambic  cho- 
rus of  the  Attic,  or  of  any  subsequent  period. 

Even  after  the  final  transformation  of  the  dithy-  Lyric 
rambic  into  the  Attic  "  Tragedy,"  and  the  appro-  ^'^^^^^^' 
priation  by  the  latter  of  the  antient  common  title 
in  familiar  usage,  certain  dithyrambic  varieties  of 
lyric  composition  continued,  at  least  in  local  prac- 
tice, to  bear  the  title  of  Tragic  chorus,  or  even  of 
Tragosdia  in  the  pristine  Dionysiac  sense.  The  tragic 
choruses  or  tragic  dramas  of  Pindar,  Simonides,  and 
other  contemporary  poets  of  the  early  Attic  period, 
though  sometimes  classed  by  antient  bibliographers 
under  a  separate  head,  were  evidently  mere  varieties 
of  the  Attic  dithyramb.^  Similar  doubtless  in  great 
part,  were  the  tragic  choruses  which  continued  to 
be  performed  in  the  Orchomenian  festivity  of  the 
Charitesia  up  to  a  late  period  of  the  Roman  empire.^ 

^  Plut.  de  Mus.  XXX.  sqq. ;  Dion.  Hal.  de  Comp.  v.  xix. ;  Aristoph.  et 
CalHm.  ap.  Suld.  v.  kIkKloI  re  xopoi. 

2  Suid.  vv.  nivS.  et  ^XifMwylSrjs ;  Schol.  Aristoph.  Vesp.  1402.;  Aristoph. 
ap.  Athen.  xn.  p.  551.;  conf.  Welck.  Nachtr,  zur  Trilog.  p.  243.  sqq. 
Boeckh  (Frag.  Pind.  p.  555.  sqq.)  has  however,  without  sufficient  reason 
it  is  apprehended,  ranged  them  under  tlie  head  of  Ilyjiorchems. 

3  Boeckh,  Staatshaush.  Ath.  vol.  ii.  p.  362. ;  conf.  Corp.  Inscr-  Gr. 
vol.  I.  p.  765.  s(jq. ;  Welck.  op.  sup.  cit. 


92  ORDERS    OF    LYRIC    PERFORMANCE.        Book  ITI. 

There  may  thus  be  distinguislied  three  stages  or 
epochs  of  the  cultivated  dithyrambic  ode  or  chorus : 
first,  the  primitive  song  of  Bacchus,  or  Dionysiac 
Vmau  ;  secondly,  the  Satyric  dithyramb  of  Arion ; 
thirdly,  the  Dithyramb  of  Lasus,  also  called  the 
Attic  Dithyramb,  under  its  numerous  moditications 
or  corruptions,  any  further  remarks  on  which  belong 
to  a  future  stage  of  this  history. 

LYRIC    COMEDY. 

"^y"'^,  10.  A  small  share  of  attention  must  still  be  de- 

comedy. 

voted  to  that  other  inferior  order  of  Dionysiac  ritual 
which,  while  scarcely  ever  assuming  the  rank  of  a 
cultivated  style  of  lyric  art,  possesses  importance 
as  standing  to  the  classical  comedy  of  Attica  in  the 
same  relation  as  the  dithyramb  of  Arion  to  her 
tragedy.  Certain  varieties  of  this  branch  of  enter- 
tainment have  already  been  noticed  as  embodied 
by  Arion  in  the  mimic  department  of  his  ceremonial. 
The  one  which  seems  to  have  enjoyed  the  most 
general  popularity  as  a  public  and  authorised  rite 
was  that  entitled  Phallica,  to  which  accordingly 
Aristotle  traces  the  origin  of  the  regular  comedy,  as 
he  does  that  of  tragedy  to  the  Cyclian  chorus  of 
Arion.  The  Phallica  was  but  an  inferior  style  of 
dithyrambic  tragoedia  or  goat-song,  in  the  pristine 
sense  of  the  term,  with  minaic  dance  and  Satyric 
chorus.  The  Dorians  advanced  an  equal  claim  to 
priority  of  invention  in  regard  to  this  as  to  the 
higher  department  of  dramatic  art,  and  apparently 
on  equally  valid  grounds.  Besides  the  general  ar- 
gument based  on  their  partiality  for  mimic  repre- 
sentation, appeal  was  made  by  them  to  the  popular 
etymology  of  the  term  Comosdia,  "  song  of  the  village 


Ch.  II.  §  10.       LYRIC    COMEDY.       SATYRIC    DRAMA.  93 

or  Come."  Such  diversions,  it  was  urged  ^,  were 
limited  in  their  origin  to  the  rustic  population. 
Hence,  as  Come  was  the  proper  Doric  term  for  vil- 
lage or  rural  district  among  the  Dorians  (Demus 
being  that  used  in  Attica),  the  phrase  Comoedia,  and 
by  consequence  the  thing  it  signified,  must,  it  was 
argued,  be  assigned  a  Doric  origin.  It  seems  how- 
ever very  doubtful  whetlier  the  god  Comus,  presiding 
as  he  certainly  did  over  an  extensive  range  of  popular 
festivity,  may  not  have  a  stronger  claim  on  the  first 
portion  of  the  word,  than  any  of  the  localities  where 
the  como3dia  was  celebrated.  A  better  ara'ument  on 
the  Dorian  side  is  the  fact  that  Susarion^,  author  of 
the  first  decided  step  towards  the  regular  Attic 
comedy,  was  a  native  of  the  Dorian  town  of  Megara, 
settled  at  Icaria  in  Attica.  Megara  was  from  an 
early  period  distinguished  for  a  species  of  low  comedy, 
or  farce,  the  taste  for  which  was  imported  by  Su- 
sarian  into  the  Attic  demus  above  mentioned,  itself  a 
principal  seat  of  the  Athenian  Dionysiaca,  where  he 
obtained  for  himself  and  for  his  mimes  a  permanent 
domicile.  As  he  preceded  Thespis  by  about  forty 
years,  the  origin  of  the  cultivated  comedy  of  Athens 
must  be  held  to  have  anticipated  that  of  her  tragedy. 
Both  having  been  produced  in  Icaria,  it  were  unrea- 
sonable to  doubt  the  influence  of  the  one  upon  the 
other,  or,  consequently,  that  the  improvement  of  the 
Megarian  comoedia  by  Susarion  gave  the  initiative  to 
that  of  the  Corinthian  tragcedia  by  Thespis. 

To  Pratinas,  another  Dorian  musician  of  the  age  "Satyr,'| 
of   ^lischylus   and   Sophocles,    belongs  the  credit  of  drai 


irama. 


•  Ap.  Aristot.  Poet.  iii.  (Graf.) 

2  Clem.  Alex.  Strom,  i.  p.  308. ;  Bekk.  Anecd.  Gr.  p.  748. ;  conf.  Bentl. 
Opusc.  p.  260.  sqq. ;  Mlill.  Dor.  vol.  ii.  p.  350.  sq. 


94  ORDERS    OF   LYRIC   PERFORMANCE.        Book  IH. 

having-  not  long  after  introduced  into  Attica  from 
his  native  city  Phlius^,  also  celebrated  for  its  mimes, 
the  remaining  variety  of  the  Athenian  drama,  under 
its  previous  local  title  of  "  Satyr,"  and  at  first  with 
no  substantial  alteration  of  its  originally  grotesque 
character.  For  the  refinement  which  entitled  it  to  a 
place  by  the  «ide  of  the  regular  tragedy  and  comedy 
on  the  Attic  stage,  it  appears  to  have  been  indebted 
partly  to  Pratinas  himself,  partly,  like  the  sister 
branches  of  Dorian  art,  to  the  great  mastersof  the 
Attic  drama.^ 

THRENUS.       EPICEDIUM.       SONG   OF   LINUS. 

Threnus.  H.  The  term  Threnus  denotes,  in  its  origin,  any 

Epicedia.  gpecies  of  lamentation,  more  properly  the  dirge  or 
lament  for  the  death  of  kinsmen  or  dear  friends.  In 
later  usage  the  title  became  nearly  equivalent  to  the 
more  familiar  one  of  Elegy.  When  sung  over  the 
corpse  at  its  laying  out  or  entombment,  the  threnus 
acquired  the  distinctive  name  of  Epicedium,  or  funeral 
song.^  The  only  two  occasions  on  which  the  threnus 
is  mentioned  by  Homer  were  of  the  latter  description. 
The  dirge  chanted  in  the  Tliad  over  the  body  of  Hector 
is  a  most  impressive  solemnity.  After  a  prelude  by 
the  bards  or  professional  musicians,  the  near  rela- 
tives, standing  round  the  bier,  offer  in  succession 
their  tribute  of  sorrow  for  the  fate,  and  eulogy  of 
the  virtues  of  the  departed  hero ;  while  the  attendant 
female  mourners  respond  at  intervals  by  their  groans 
and  tears. 

^  Suid.  V.  npoT. ;  Pausan.  n.  xiii.  5. ;  Dioscorid.  in  Anthol.  Pal.  vn. 
ep.  37.  707. ;  conf.  Mull.  Dor.  vol.  n.  p.  369. 

'  Dioscorid.  locc.  sup.  citt. 
Procl.  Chrest.  p.'385.!  Gaisf. ;  Etym.  M.  v.  Bp^voi ;  Tryph.  ap.  Am- 
mon.  V.  4TrtK-l]Setov. 


Ch.  II.  §11.  THRENUS.       SONG   OF    LINUS.  95 

There  are  few  branches  of  lyric  composition  with  songof 

''  ■"■  Linus. 

stronger  claims  to  early  cultivation  than  the  Threnus. 
Grief  for  the  loss  of  the  objects  which  chiefly  render 
life   valuable,    must   be  in  all  ages  a  fertile  source 
of  poetical  inspiration.     The  origin  of  the  threnus, 
accordingly,  is  traced  back   to  the  remote  fabulous 
ages  of  Greek  art.     It  is  there  identified  in  mythical 
legend  with  the  name  and  fate  of  a  primitive  hero  or 
demigod  called   Linus. ^     This  mysterious  personage 
appears  in  two    capacities.     In    the   one  he   is  the 
emblem  of  that  vanity  and  uncertainty  of  mundane 
existence  from  which  the  threnus  derives  its  subjects 
of  celebration ;  he  is  the  type  more  especially  of  the 
ephemeral  tenure  of  health,  youth,  or  beauty,  liable 
to  be  suddenly  blighted  or  cut  off  by  disease,  decay, 
or  death.     Hence  he  is  figured  in  the  most  elegant, 
if  not  the  earliest  version  of  the  fable,  as  a  beautiful 
boy,  or  youth  under  age,  prematurely  slain  by  the 
weapon  of  some  invidious  deity,  usually  Apollo  the 
Destroyer,  whose  afflictive  dispensations  are  figured 
as    chiefly  directed   against    such   victims.     It   was 
natural  that  the  personification  of  a  branch   of  art 
should  himself  become  a  minstrel ;  and,  in  this  second 
character  Linus  is  slain  by  Phoebus,  from  jealousy  of 
his  musical  skill. ^     Hence  ao:ain  a  third  sio;nification 
of  the  term,  as  denoting  a  popular  song  celebrating 
the  youthful  bard,   and  which  became  the  type  or 
eponyme  of  this  whole  threnetic  order  of  poetical  com- 
position.    Several  remnants  of  this  plaintive  Linus- 
song  have  been  preserved.^ 

*  Plut.  de  Mus.  m.  ;  conf.  Welck.  ub.  den  Linos,  Kl.  Schrift.  vol.  i. 
p.  8.  sqq. 

2  Paus.  IX.  xxix.  3.  ;  Philoch.  ap.  Eust.  ad  II.  xvni.  570.  p.  1163. 

3  Ap.  Bergk,  Poett.  lyrr.  Gr.  p.  878.  sq. ;  conf.  infra,  §  19. 


98  ORDERS    OF    LYRIC    PERFORMANCE.        Book  III. 

It  is  remarkable  that  the  "  Song  of  Linus  "  was 
from  an  early  period  closely  associated  with  agricul- 
tural life,  as  the  popular  chant  of  the  mne-gathering 
and  harvest-home.  These  however  are  proverbially 
distinguished  in  all  countries  as  jovial,  rather  than 
mournful  solemnities.  Accordingly,  in  Homer's  de- 
scription of  the  vintage  festivity  in  the  "  Shield,"  the 
Song  of  Linus  is  allucled  to,  if  not  as  itself  a  jocund 
song,  as  the  accompaniment  at  least  of  a  jocund 
ceremony.^  The  apparent  anomaly  finds  its  explan- 
ation in  the  figurative  mythology  of  agricultural  life 
among  the  Greeks  and  other  nations  of  the  ]\[editer- 
ranean ;  where  the  declining  year,  and  consequent 
transition  of  the  terrestrial  fruits  from  maturity  to 
decay,  were  brought  into  close  and  appropriate  con- 
nexion with  the  corresponding  vicissitudes  of  human 
existence.  Hence  the  intimate  union  between  the  rites 
of  Ceres  and  those  of  Pluto,  between  the  mystical 
theology  of  the  world  above  and  that  of  the  world  be- 
low. The  Song  of  Linus,  the  Genius  of  ephemeral 
existence  formed  therefore  a  significant  ceremony 
in  those  rustic  festivities,  which  in  every  country 
are  among  the  most  antient,  as  being  the  most  vitally 
associated  with  the  existence  of  civilised  society.^ 
Hesiod  seems,  indeed,  to  describe  the  Lament  of 
Linus  as  habitually  sung  at  the  opening  and  close  of 
all  banquets  or  festive  rejoicings;  possibly  as  a  "me- 
mento mori,"  or  warning  against  undue  elation   or 

1  II.  XVIII.  570. 

°  Hence  some  authors  interpret  the  death  of  Linus  by  the  hand  of 
Apollo  as  indicating  the  victory  of  the  more  elegant  and  rational  taste 
for  music  and  lyric  song,  preferred  in  the  ceremonial  of  that  god,  over 
the  more  melancholy  or  impassioned,  but  ruder  and  often  gloomy  and 
barbai-ous,  style  of  the  Bacchic,  Orphic,  and  other  rites  of  the  class  to 
which  the  Song  of  Linus  belonged.     Miiller,  Dor.  i.  p.  346.  sqq. 


I 


Ch.  n.  §11.  THRENUS.  97 

exuberance  of  joyous  feeling.^  It  was  natural  that 
the  character  both  of  the  hero  and  of  his  song,  in 
their  more  immediate  connexion  with  rural  life, 
should  undergo  some  variation.  Among  the  Argives 
accordingly,  Linus  was  not  a  professional  minstrel 
but  a  gentle  shepherd  boy,  whose  office  it  was  to 
guard  and  nurse  the  tender  lambs,  and  who  was  him- 
self torn  to  pieces  by  wolves  or  raging  dogs.^ 

The  prevalence  of  substantially  the  same  legend 
and  rite  in  numerous  other  parts  of  the  antient 
world,  offers  a  striking  example  of  a  correspondence 
of  religious  ceremonial,  spontaneously  arising  from  a 
similar  association  of  ideas,  among  different  nations 
where  no  trace  can  be  detected  of  a  direct  influence 
exercised  by  one  upon  the  other.  In  almost  every 
country  on  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean,  Greek 
speculative  mythologers  discovered  a  fable,  a  hero,  and 
a  song,  which  according  to  the  popular  practice  they 
identified,  and  certainly  with  more  than  usual  plausi- 
bility, -with  their  own  national  song  and  hero  Linus.^ 

The  Threnus  of  Homer's  bards,  like  other  culti- 
vated branches  of  composition  in  those  early  days, 
was  probably  in  dactylic  measure.  With  the  ad- 
vance of  lyric  art  a  greater  variety  of  metrical  forms 
was  admitted.  The  reputed  author  of  the  extension 
was  the  Phrygian  Olympus,  who  first  introduced 
into  Greece  a  taste  for  wind  instruments,  the  style  of 
music  best  adapted  to  mournful  or  pathetic  subjects. 
Several  of  the  more  remarkable  compositions  ascribed 

*  Frg.  ccxiv.  Marcksch. 

^  Conon,  XIX. ;  conf.  Pausan.  ii.  xix.  7. 

^  Such  are  the  Atys  and  Lityerses  of  the  Phrygians,  the  Bormus  of 
the  Mariandynae,  the  Hylas  of  the  Mysians,  the  Adonis  and  Thammuz 
of  the  Semitic  races,  and  the  Maneros  of  the  Egyptians.     Miill.  Dor.  i. 
p.  347 ;  Welck.  lib.  den  Linos,  Kl.  Schrift.  vol.  i.  p.  9.  sqq. 
VOL.  III.  H 


98  ORDERS    OF    LYRIC    PERFORMANCE.         Book  III. 

to  him  belonged  to  the  sacred  class  of  Threni.  Such 
was  the  Lament,  or  Dirge  ^,  of  the  snake  Pytho  slain 
by  Apollo,  also  called  a  nome.  The  nomes  of  this 
author  are  all  indeed  described  as  of  a  mournful  ten- 
dency. That  such  was  the  case  with  his  celebrated 
Epitymbian  nomes  ^  is  indicated  by  their  name, 
literally.  Tomb-songs.  It  would  appear  however 
that  these  nomes  were  purely  musical,  or  in  other 
words  instrumental,  rather  than  vocal  or  poetical 
performances.  Xor  does  the  Threnus  appear  to  have 
been  a  very  popular  branch  of  composition  with  the 
lyric  poets  of  this  early  period.  But  few  works  are 
cited  under  that  title  prior  to  the  age  of  Simonides, 
of  whose  Threni,  as  of  those  of  his  younger  contem- 
porary Pindar,  several  fine  remains  have  been  pre- 
served^, partly  relating  to  mj^thical  subjects  partly 
in  honour  of  human  personages. 

CONVIVIAL    POETRY     (sYSIPOSIACa).     PARCENIA.     SCOLIA. 

12.  In  the  earlier  stao-es  of  Greek  literature,   al- 

Convivial  i  r  -       ^  •    ■  -    i 

poetry.  most  cvcry  branch  oi  poetical  composition  might 
be  classed  under  the  head  of  Convivial.  The  ban- 
quet formed  part  even  of  the  most  solemn  religious 
offices;  and  for  this  portion  of  the  sacred  ritual 
lyric  performances  seem  chiefly  to  have  been  re- 
served. In  the  Iliad,  after  the  propitiatory  sacrifice 
to  Apollo,  the  Greeks  spend  the  day  in  carousing  and 
singing  pasans  in  honour  of  the  deity  ;  and  through- 
out the  poet's  narrative,  the  sacred  hymn  or  the  epic 
song,  recording  the  praises  of  the  gods  or  the  actions 
of  heroes,  is  indispensable  to  the  full  enjoyment  of 
convivial  festivity.     Like  the   psean   of  AjdoUo,  the 

1  Plut.  de  INIus.  XV.  '  Pollux,  iv.  78. 

^  Boeckh,  Fragm.  Find.  p.  619. ;  Bergk,  Fragin.  Simon,  p.  759. 


Ch.  II.  §  12.  CONVIVIAL   POETRY.  99 

dithyramb  of  Bacchus  was,  from  the  earliest  period, 
habitually  sung  at  the  table,  as  appears  from  a  passage 
of  Archilochus  containing  the  most  antient  extant  al- 
lusion to  a  dithyrambic  ode.  The  encomia  or  epinicia 
were  also  performed,  by  preference,  at  the  feast  in 
honour  of  the  distinguished  personage  to  whom  they 
were  dedicated.  But  in  the  subsequent  refinements  of 
lyric  art  these  various  orders  of  composition,  as  des- 
tined for  more  dignified  occasions,  or  connected  with 
a  more  definite  range  of  subject,  were  ranked  each 
under  its  own  proper  title.  The  term  Convivial 
poetry,  in  the  more  limited  sense,  embraced  but  the 
lighter  more  fugitive  style  of  composition,  the  object 
of  which  was  to  enliven  the  banquet  in  its  purely 
social  character. 

In  the  mode  of  providing  for  this  enjoyment,  the  varieties  of 

•    ,  1   •  • ,  1  11  •  convivial 

same  variety  and  ingenuity  are  observable  as  in  every  song. 
other  department  of  cultivated  Greek  art.  Convivial 
songs  were  classed  by  the  antients  under  three  ^  heads : 
first,  those  sung  in  chorus  by  the  whole  company ; 
secondly,  those  sung  by  each  guest  in  succession : 
thirdly,  such  as  were  also  sung  in  succession,  but 
under  certain  peculiarities  of  arrangement,  and  with 
a  limitation  in  ordinary  cases  to  the  more  gifted 
members  of  the  company. 

The  songs  of  the  first  class  appear  to  have  been  Pa;ans. 
chiefly  those  inaugural  odes  familiarly  called  pagans  ^, 
sung  as  grace  or  prooemium  to  the  whole  entertain- 
ment, and  usually  addressed  to  Apollo,  sometimes  to 
Jove,  Bacchus,  Hermes,  or  such  other  deity  as  the 
occasion  suggested.     The  next  more  varied  order  of  parania. 

^  Dicfearch.  ap.  Suid.  Hesych.  et  Phot.  v.  (tkoXiov  ;  Plut.  Symposiac.  1. 1. 
5. ;  Artemon,  ap.  Athen.  xv.  p.  694. 
^  See  above,  p.  67.  note  3. 

H  2 


100  ORDERS    OF   LYRIC    TERFORMANCE.        Book  III. 

symposiac  performance  in  which  all  took  part,  though 
not  all  simultaneously,  very  nuich  resembles  our  old 
national  custom  of  laying  each  guest  under  an  obliga- 
tion to  "  sing  his  song,"  ^  whether  his  own  composition 
or  some  popular  ode  of  the  day.  On  these  occasions 
a  lyre  or  myrtle  branch^,  less  frequently  a  drinking- 
cup^,  was  handed  round  as  a  temporary  badge  of 
office  from  guest  to  guest,  each  in  his  turn  receiv- 
ing it  from  his  predecessor,  and  passing  it  on  to  his 
neighbour  at  the  close  of  his  own  part.  The  lyre 
was  destined  probably  for  those  alone  who,  together 
with  a  musical  voice,  possessed  skill  in  the  use  of  the 
instrument.  When  these  qualifications,  one  or  both, 
were  w^anting,  the  myrtle  branch  was  preferred,  as 
the  antient  proper  symbol  of  the  more  simple  styles 
of  poetical  recitation.^  The  songs  thus  circulated 
bore  no  distinctive  title  but  that  of  Paroenia  (wine- 
songs),  or  Symposiaca  (drinking-songs),  common  to 
all  those  of  the  convivial  order, 
sroiia,  or  13.  The   third  more  complicated  and  more  cele- 

musieai       bratcd   species  of  paroenia  were  those  called  Scolia. 
catches.       rpj^^   performance  was   here   reserved  for   the  more 
scientific  and  experienced  musicians  of  the  party. ^ 

'  Plat.  Syrapos.  p.  214.  sqq.  Occasionally  prose  was  substituted  for 
poetry,  each  guest  telling  a  story,  or  offering  a  short  essay  on  some 
pleasant  topic.     Plat.  loc.  cit. 

2  Aristoph.  Nub.  1358.,  Schol.  ad  loc. ;  Vesp.  1214—1220.,  Schol.  ad 
loc. ;  Pint.  Sympos.  i.  i.  5. ;  Hesych.  vv.  ixvppivr\s  et  tV  eVtSe^ia;/ ;  Cic. 
Tusc.  I.  ii. 

3  Athen.  xi.  p.  503. 

*  Apostolius  et  Hesych.  v.  a^eiv  irphs  fivpp.  In  Aristoph.  Nub.  1356. 
sqq.  the  lyre  is  offered  to  Phidippides,  when  it  is  proposed  that  he  shall 
sing  an  ode  of  Simonides,  a  melic  poet.  The  myrtle  branch  is  substituted 
when  it  is  proposed  that  he  shall  recite  a  passage  of  ^schylus  or  Euri- 
pides. 

^  Artem.  ap.  Athen.  xv.  p.  694. ;  DicaBarcli.  ap.  Phot,  et  Suid.  v.  aKo\i6v; 
conf.  Hesych.  v.  o-koA.  ;  Schol.  ad  Aristoph.  Vesp.  1214.  1220. ;  Plut.  Symp. 


Ch.  II.  §  13.       SCOLIA,    OR    CONVIVIAL   CATCHES.  101 

The  chief  of  the  qualified  guests  led  off  with  a  short 
stave  or  sonnet,  whether  an  entire  ode  or  a  part  of 
some  longer  composition,  marked  in  either  case  by 
some  lively  spirit  or  point.  He  then  handed  the 
symbol  of  office  to  the  person  who  it  had  been  ar- 
ranged should  follow,  or  whom  he  thought  fit  to 
select  as  his  successor,  who  passed  it  on  in  his  turn 
to  a  third,  and  so  forth ;  each  being  expected  at 
once  to  carry  on  the  strain,  whether  in  the  way  of 
continuation  or  repartee,  in  the  same  or  a  closely 
congenial  style  of  subject  or  measure.  It  may  be 
presumed  that,  at  least  in  the  origin  of  the  custom, 
these  sallies  were  understood  in  courtesy  to  be,  and 
frequently  were,  either  impromptus,  or  pieces  pre- 
pared by  each  performer  for  the  occasion.  But  no 
such  rule  seems  to  have  been  enforced  in  practice, 
each  guest  being  at  liberty,  if  not  ready  with  an 
appropriate  contribution  of  his  own,  to  select  one 
from  the  stores  of  some  favourite  author.  As  nu- 
merous such  forms,  adapted  to  an  equal  variety  of 
occasions,  obtained  popularity  in  the  more  advanced 
stages  of  convivial  literature,  the  process  of  linking 
or  "  capping  "  the  successive  epigrams  or  stanzas  on 
each  other  would  be  greatly  facilitated  :  and  where 
any  number  of  them  became  more  peculiarly  con- 
nected in  subject  or  measure  with  each  other,  as 
could  hardly  fail  to  result  from  the  very  spirit  of  the 
practice,  their  combination  into  a  single  longer  ode 
or  "  canzone,"  consisting  of  a  corresponding  number  of 
strophes  or  stanzas,  as  naturally  followed.  Such  was, 
for  example,  the  celebrated  scolion,  or  series  of  scolia, 
addressed   to   Harmodius   and    Aristogiton.      These 

I.  i. ;  Eustatb.  ad  Od.  vii.  125.  p.  1574, ;  conf.  De  la  Nauze,  Mem.  de  I'Acad. 
dos  Insor.  vol.  ix.  p.  3"24.  sqq. ;  Ilgeu,  Scolia  sivc  Carrn.  Conviv.  Grace. 

u    3 


1 02  ORDERS    OF    LYRIC    PERFORMANCE.        Book  III. 

four  beautiful  stanzas,  while  sufficiently  connected  in 
subject  to  form  a  continuous  ode  as  published  in  the 
modern  collections,  are  yet  capable  of  being  trans- 
posed, without  any  sacrifice  of  their  bond  of  conti- 
nuity, in  such  a  manner  as  to  imply,  apart  from  other 
evidence,  the  originally  independent  integrity  of  each. 
The  precise  nature  of  the  connexion,  in  subject, 
style,  or  numbers,  requisite  to  constitute  any  such 
series  of  poetical  sallies  a  scolion  or  round  of  scolia, 
as  distinct  from  the  ordinary  parcenia  or  wine-songs, 
is  nowhere  clearly  defined.  Nor  probably  were  the 
regulations  on  the  subject  of  a  very  definite  nature. 
Much  might  depend  on  the  previous  understanding 
of  the  party.  In  the  more  rigid  form  of  the  enter- 
tainment a  certain  continuity  both  of  subject  and 
measure  might  be  required.  But  as  in  a  numerous 
company  the  series  could  hardly  be  prolonged  to 
any  considerable  extent,  consistently  with  a  strict 
observance  of  any  such  rule,  some  relaxation  of  it 
would  be  necessary.  The  number  of  responses  to 
which  the  correspondence  was,  in  the  first  instance, 
required  to  extend  might  be  limited,  and  when 
brought  to  a  close  give  place  to  a  new  series.  In 
some  cases  an  entire  change,  both  of  subject  and 
measure,  might  be  allowable ;  in  others,  the  abrupt- 
ness of  the  transition  might  be  softened  by  a  con- 
tinuance 01  the  same  measure  with  a  change  of  subject, 
or  by  the  introduction  of  a  new  measure,  the  subject 
remaining  the  same.  A  prolonged  series  of  scolia, 
without  some  such  opening  for  variety,  could  hardly 
fail  to  become  monotonous.  Another  bond  of  con- 
nexion was  supplied  by  innuendos  or  ambiguous  al- 
lusions, satirical  or  complimentary,  to  the  character 


Cn.  II.  §  13.       SCOLIA,    OR   CONVIVIAL    CATCHES.  103 

or  circumstances  of  the  individual  performers.^  In 
such  cases  the  principle  of  contrast  would  often  be 
preferable,  in  point  of  effect,  to  that  of  conformity. 
The  scolion  of  the  Crab  and  Snake  ^,  for  example, 
cited  by  Athenagus,  where  the  shell-fish  counsels  the 
reptile  to  mend  its  crooked  gait,  would,  without  re- 
ference to  any  previous  train  of  subject,  have  formed 
a  very  happy  repartee  to  a  moral  sentiment  uttered 
by  a  predecessor  not  himself  remarkable  for  acting 
up  to  his  own  precepts.  Almost  any  phrase  or  al- 
lusion contained  in  a  foregoing  scolion  might  thus, 
under  incidental  circumstances,  supply  a  catchword 
to  the  next.  Such  for  instance  was  the  obvious, 
probably  hackneyed  introduction,  which  the  presenta- 
tion of  the  myrtle  branch  of  office  afforded  to  the 
scolion  of  Harmodius : 

"  In  a  myrtle  branch  my  sword  I'll  bear.** 

The  above  speculations,  which  naturally  offer  them- 
selves in  illustration  of  the  nature  of  this  entertain- 
ment, seem  all  more  or  less  borne  out  by  the  only 
two  passages  of  antiquity  in  which  it  is  distinctly  ex- 
emplified :  the  one  in  the  latter  part  of  the  Wasps  of 
Aristoj)hanes^ ;  the  other  in  the  concluding  dialogue 
of  the  Deipnosophistas  of  Athengeus.^  The  former  pas- 
sage contains  five  or  six  scolia.  The  burlesque  irre- 
gularity however,  of  the  mode  in  which  the  game  is 
here  carried  on,  renders  it  the  less  easy  to  recognise 


Eustath.  ad  Od.  vii.  125.  p.  1574. 
Ilgen,  Scol.  IX.  p.  36  ;  Bergk,  Poett.  lyrr.  p.  874. 
1222.  sqq. 

XV.  p.  694.  sqq. ;  conf.  Eustatli.  ad  Od.  125.  p.  1574. 
H  4 


1 04  ORDEllS   OF   LYllIC   PERFORMANCE.        Book  III. 

either  the  metrical  forms  of  the  stanzas,  or  the  exact 
nature  of  their  interconnexion,  further  than  that  it  is 
maintained  in  a  great  degree  by  humorous  allusions 
to  the  action  of  the  drama.  In  the  banquet  of  Athe- 
najus,  where  upwards  of  twenty  scolia  occur  in  suc- 
cessive order,  it  seems  doubtful  whether  it  be  the 
compiler's  intention  to  afford  a  complete  representa- 
tion of  the  old  mode  of  carrying  on  the  game,  or 
merely  to  accumulate,  in  the  way  of  specimen,  some 
of  the  more  favourite  Attic  sets  of  scolia.  In  either 
case  the  compilation  pointedly  illustrates  the  views 
above  expressed  as  to  the  general  spirit  and  method 
of  the  performance.  Although  no  uninterrupted 
bond  of  continuity  can  be  traced  throughout  the 
series,  the  connexion  between  contiguous  members  of 
it,  extending  often  through  five  or  six  in  succession, 
is  sufficiently  palpable.^  The  first  five  are  invocations 
of  popular  Attic  divinities,  Pallas,  Ceres,  Proserpine, 
Apollo,  Diana,  Pan,  and  Pandrosus ;  and  the  fourth 
and  fifth  are  further  united,  both  by  a  punning  con- 
nexion of  the  names  of  the  deities  celebrated,  and  by 
a  common  allusion  to  the  glories  of  the  Persian  war.^ 
The  five  form  therefore  in  themselves  a  complete 
and  well-rounded  series,  as  regards  their  sense ;  and 

1  The  numbers  are  here  given  as  in  the  original  text  of  Athenaeus 
(ed.  Tauchn.  vol.  iv.  p.  153.  sqq.).  The  whole  set  of  scolia  is  to  be 
found  in  the  collections  of  Schueldewin  (Delect.  Foes.  Gr.  pt.  iii.  p.  456.) 
and  of  Bergk  (Poett.  lyrr.  p.  871.)  ;  but  the  members  of  the  series  have, 
by  those  compilers,  been  transposed  or  intermingled  with  other  frag- 
mentary remains  of  similar  character. 

^  Pan  and  Pandrosus  were  popular  deities  of  victory  among  the  Athe- 
nians, in  immediate  connexion  with  the  events  of  that  war.  (Herod,  vi. 
cv. ;  Simonid.  ap.  Bergk,  Poett.  lyrr.  p.  785. ;  conf  Ugen,  p.  15.  sqq.  22.) 
No.  4.  seems  to  be  a  paraphrase  of,  or  extract  from,  a  strophe  of  Pindar. 
(Boeckh,  Fragm.  Find.  p.  592. ;  conf  Ilgen,  op.  cit.  p.  12.) 


Ch.  n.  §  13.       SCOLIA,    OR   CONVIVIAL    CATCHES.  105 

in  the  first  four  the  measure  also  corresponds.  The 
alteration  of  the  rhythm  in  the  last  seems  also 
intentional,  in  order  to  constitute  it,  in  the  spirit  of 
the  game,  a  kind  of  epode  to  the  series.  Then 
follows  a  set  of  terse  moral  maxims,  in  four  stanzas 
(6 — 9.).  The  favourite  series  of  Harmodius  and 
Aristogiton  comes  next.  It  consists  of  five  stanzas 
(10 — 14.),  inclusive  again  of  a  sort  of  epode  in  a 
different  rhythm,  forming  both  an  appropriate  com- 
mentary on  the  previous  text,  and  a  transition  from 
the  praises  of  the  two  patriots  to  those  of  another 
popular  Attic  hero,  Ajax,  celebrated  with  his  father 
Telamon  in  stanzas  15.  and  16.  In  these  two  stanzas 
another  new  and  somewhat  rare  measure  is  intro- 
duced, and  followed  up  with  a  change  of  subject  in 
stanzas  17.  and  18.  No  relation  either  as  to  measure 
or  subject  can  be  recognised  between  the  next  two 
stanzas,  19,  20.,  and  the  previous  or  subsequent  por- 
tions of  the  series.^  But  in  the  ensuing  five  stanzas 
the  interconnexion  is  renewed,  and  pointedly  main- 
tained in  a  succession  of  significant  repartees  or 
punning  mutual  allusions.^     The  two  Cretan  scolia 

^  Unless,  indeed,  we  assume  a  punning  alliteration  between  /SciAt)  in  20. 
and  $d\avov  fia\avivs  in  the  following  stanzas ;  as  the  text  of  Athena3us, 
p.  699  A.B.,  may  seem  to  imply. 

^  These  five  scolia,  21 — 25.,  presenting  a  variety  of  metres  and  styles, 
grave  and  gay,  coarse  and  elegant,  are  here  subjoined,  for  the  better  il- 
lustration both  of  their  own  interconnexion  and  of  the  spirit  of  the  game : 

2]  .   a  vs  TCLV  ^aKavov  rav  fiev  Ixej  Tav  8'  eparai  Ao/SeH/, 
Kayii)  iroiSa  Ka\r]V  rrjv  /j-eu  eX<^  ^V  S'  epafxai  Xa^itv. 

22.  irSpvrj  Ka\  fia\ai>ehs  Twinhv  exoucr"  ifiTreSews  edos' 
iv  ravTa  irviKcii  r6v  t   ay aOhu  rov  re  Kauhv  \ouv. 

23.  €7X*'  ^V  K7)5au'(,  StaKove,  firiS'  iTnK7\dov^ 

ei  xph  Toiy  ayadols  avhpaaiv  oivoxoe'iy- 


istics. 


106  ORDERS   OF   LYRIC   PERFORMANCE.        Book  III. 

(26,  27. )\   which  close  the  series,   while  not  appa- 
rently connected  in  any  way  with  their  predecessors, 
are  intimately  so  with  each  other. 
'^^^^^  14.  Amonf?   the   varieties   of  measure    and    style 

poetical  T      .         -,     .  .    .  T  . 

character-  admitted  in  these  compositions,  and  which  do  not 
seem  to  have  been  subjected  to  any  definite  limita- 
tion, a  general  preference  is  given  to  the  melic 
strophe.  The  properties  by  which  the  individual 
scolia  are  distinguished  from  other  lyric  stanzas  or 
stroj)hes  of  the  same  class  are,  an  epigrammatic  terse- 
ness of  expression,  compactness  and  vivacity  of  num- 
bers, and,  as  a  general  rule,  brevity ;  features  all 
specially  conducive,  or  even  essential,  to  the  spirit  of 
the  game.  Among  the  preserved  scolia  are  many  of 
the  more  popular  current  in  the  best  ages  of  Greece. 

24.  al  al!  AeirpvBpiov  TrpoSuaeraipoV 
o'lovs  &VC  pas  atriiKecras,  fiaxeffdai 
ayuOov s  re,  k«1  evTrarpiSas, 
ot  t6t   eSft^av  o'iwv  iruTepaiv  tffav. 

25.  o(TT4s  &v'5pa  plKov  /xii  it poSlBwcr iv,  ixeyaKy)!/  exet 
rifiav,  iv  Ti  ^poToh  ev  re  Qiolaiv  kolt    ifihy  voov. 

In  the  first  two  couplets,  besides  the  play  of  words  between  ^dxavos 
(glans  and  glaris  penis)  and  $a\auevs,  the  satirical  allusion  to  the  second 
line  of  No.  21.,  by  the  introduction  of  the  Tr6pv7]  in  No.  22.,  is  obvious. 
The  eV  raiiTa  TrueA^,  &c.,  is  an  equally  palpable  taunt  at  the  indelicate 
juxtaposition  of  the  swinish  and  the  amorous  varieties  of  sensual  appetite 
in  the  first  couplet  (jrveXos  signifies  both  trough  and  bath).  Nos.  22. 
and  23.  are  connected  by  the  alliteration  between  t6v  r  a.yaQ6v  and  toIs 
ayadois  avSpdaiv ;  also  by  the  antithesis  between  the  pouring  or  mixing 
of  the  wine  in  the  latter,  and  of  the  water  in  the  former  couplet.  The 
same  series  of  allusion  is  carried  on,  not  only  by  the  &v5pas  ayadovs  of 
No.  24.,  but  by  the  punning  apostrophe  to  the  war  of  the  Lipsydrium, 
or  "  waterless ;"  which  name,  with  its  epithet  Trpotcoaeraipov,  may  also  hint 
at  an  unfair  proportion  of  wine  to  water  infused  by  the  ohoxdos  of 
No.  23.  into  the  cup  handed  to  the  poet  of  No.  24  ,  and  to  the  consequent 
effect  on  the  head  of  the  latter.  No.  25.  winds  up  the  set  by  a  moral 
commentary,  in  somewhat  more  serious  mood,  on  the  same  epithet  irpoZoxxi- 
raipov  of  No.  24. 

^  Incorrectly  written  as  one  in  the  editions  of  Athenaeus. 


I 


Cu.  II.  §  14.       SCOLIA,    OR    CONVIVIAL   CATCHES.  107 

Some  of  these  are  also,  as  may  be  supposed,  among 
the  most  brilliant  specimens  which  have  been  trans- 
mitted of  Greek  epigrammatic  or  didactic  poetry, 
and  are  constantly  quoted  and  commented  as  such 
by  the  leading  critics  and  moralists  of  every  period.^ 
Even  where  the  sense  itself  is  not  remarkable  for 
point  or  spirit,  the  structure  and  rhythm  are  usually 
distinguished  by  a  certain  combination  of  emphasis 
with  harmony,  and  by  an  alternate  rapidity  in  the 
flow  and  abruptness  in  the  termination  of  the  rhyth- 
mical clauses,  peculiar  to  these  compositions,  and  sin- 
gularly conducive  to  that  mixture  of  elegance  and 
pungency  which  it  was  clearly  the  object  of  their 
authors  to  impart  to  them.  This  joint  precision  and 
harmony  of  effect  has  been  occasionally  enhanced  by 
the  aid  of  rhyme.  It  was  remarked  in  a  previous 
chapter,  that  although  rhyme,  in  the  modern  sense, 
was  never  distinctly  recognised  as  an  element  of 
rhythmical  harmony  in  classical  poetry,  yet  the 
Greek  ear  was  not  insensible  to  the  value  of  homo- 
phone terminations  in  contiguous  verses  or  metri- 
cal systems.  Of  the  employment  of  this  expedient 
several  of  the  extant  scolia  supply,  whether  intui- 
tively or  intentionally  on  the  part  of  their  authors, 
examples  of  a  very  marked  description.  As  an  illus- 
tration are  subjoined  two  consecutive  scolia,  of  mixed 
choriambic  and  dactylic  measure,  from  the  collection 
of  Athenaeus : 

xai  [xs  KoXoi  TToiOBg  4>=po7|ev  Aiov6(riov  sg  yopov, 
zi^  ccTrvfiov  xa'kov  yBvol\^riv  [xsya  ^f)v(rioVf 
xoLi  [xs  xakri  y\jvr\  <^opo»|>)  xaSapov  Qe^xsvr}  voov. 

'  Those  more  especially  of  Harmodius,  Telamon,  and  that  of  Simonides 
to  Hygea. 


108  ORDERS    OF   LYRIC    TERFORMANCE.        Book  lU. 

O  that  I  were  the  sweet-toned  lyre,  of  burnished  ivory  bright, 

Which  beautiful  boys,  in  the  festive  quire,  attune  to  the  Dionysiac  rite ! 

O  that  I  were  the  golden  vase,  so  pure,  and  of  form  so  fair. 
Which  beautiful  dames,  at  the  festive  games,  in  their  arms  to  the  sacred 
altar  bear  ! 

The  rhyming  cadences  are  chiefly  in  the  central 
ca3sure  of  each  verse.  They  extend  however,  whe- 
ther in  the  mode  of  pure  rhyme,  alliteration,  or  repe- 
tition, for  all  these  definitions  are  here  perhaps 
applicable,  not  only  to  the  endings,  but  indeed  over 
every  part  of  the  text.  They  are,  in  fact,  accumu- 
lated to  an  excess  which  might  be  considered  licen- 
tious even  in  modern  poetry.  Here  however,  partly 
owing  to  the  absence  of  that  equable  formality  of 
recurrence  which  is  the  characteristic  of  modern 
rhyme,  partly  to  the  general  liveliness  and  emphatic 
spirit  of  the  rhythm,  the  result  is  certainly  a  great 
addition  both  to  the  poetical  and  the  epigrammatic 
effect  of  the  couplets.^ 

The  name  Scolion,  literally  oblique  or  crooked, 
finds  its  natural  interpretation,  partly  in  the  enig- 
matical obliquity  or  ambiguity  of  sentiment  ^  in  the 
succession  of  scolia,  partly  in  the  indirect  or  zigzag 
manner  in  which  the  song  passed  from  one  guest  to 
another ;  the  lyre  or  myrtle  branch  being  trans- 
mitted at  pleasure  by  the  previous  performer  to 
whomsoever  he  might  select,  instead  of  following  its 

^  The  same  characteristics  are  observable,  in  more  or  less  marked 
forms,  in  other  parts  of  the  collection  ;  as  for  example  in  the  two  scolia 
of  Telamon,  and  several  of  those  of  Harmodius,  where  the  neighbouring 
stanzas  are  often  in  words,  as  well  as  in  spirit  or  allusion,  a  sort  of  echo 
or  response  to  each  other,  with  a  tendency  to  alliteration  similar  to  that 
above  illustrated. 

2  Auctt.  sup.  citt.  in  p.  100.  note  5.  Hence  Aristophanes  (Acharn.  532.) 
satirises  the  legal  enactments  of  Pericles  as  Hcnrep  (TKo\ia  y^y pa/xixevovs ;  viz. 
(juaint,  enigmatical,  mystified. 


Ch.  II.  §  14.       SCOLIA,    OR   CONVIVIAL   CATCHES.  109 

regular  course  round  the  table,  as  customary  in 
ordinary  parcenia.  The  phrase  is,  in  fact,  in  so  far 
the  converse  of  our  own  familiar  expression  of  "  the 
song  going  round." 

Pindar's  assignment  of  the  invention  of  the  scolion 
to  Terpander  \  may  perhaps  be  more  deserving  of  a 
literal  interpretation  than  most  other  similar  notices. 
The  refined  and  artificial  nature  of  the  entertainment 
renders  it  more  probable  that  it  should  have  been 
devised  by  some  ingenious  musical  professor  at  a  com- 
paratively advanced  stage  of  art,  than  spontaneously 
suggested  by  early  national  taste.  The  practice,  while 
popular  every  where,  seems  to  have  been  more  espe- 
cially so  in  Athens,  as  might  have  been  expected, 
from  the  scope  it  offered  for  the  display  of  wit  and 
smart  repartee,  and  for  inculcating  moral  and  political 
maxims  in  a  lively  and  familiar  form.  In  later  times 
accordingly,  it  appears  to  have  ranked  as  a  peculiarly 
Attic  entertainment.  As  such  Athenasus  characterises 
it  when  introducing  his  collection  of  scolia,  the  greater 
part  of  which  are  devoted  to  Attic  subjects.  The 
series  of  "  Harmodius "  is  ascribed  in  whole  or  in 
part   to  Callistratus,  an   Athenian  ^  ;   two  others  to 

'  The  opinion  of  several  modern  commentators  (Ulrici,  Gesch.  der 
Hell.  Dichtk.  vol.  ii.  p.  382. ;  Bode,  Gesch.  der  Hell.  Dichtk.  vol.  ii.  pt.  ii. 
p.  457.;  conf.  Mull.  Hist,  of  Gr.  Lit.  p.  188.),  that  Terpander  is  here 
indicated  merely  as  the  originator  of  some  peculiar  style  of  melody 
called  "scolia"  or  "oblique,"  appropriated  to  this  entertainment,  while 
founded  on  incidental  passages  of  writers  of  no  ^authority,  and  opposed 
to  the  view  of  the  best  antient  critics,  is  not  in  itself  very  probable,  nor 
indeed  very  intelligible.  It  is  difficult  to  understand  how,  consistently 
with  the  principles  of  Greek  art  or  taste,  any  such  single  style  of  music 
could  have  been  adapted  to  a  rapid  succession  of  fugitive  compositions  of 
from  two  to  six  verses  each,  offering  as  gi'eat  a  variety  of  measure  as  of 
subject,  sentiment,  and  allusion,  from  the  licentious  pasquinade  or  bur- 
lesque epigram  to  the  gravest  maxims  of  morality  or  religion. 

-  Ilgen,  p.  60. 


110  ORDERS    OF    LYRIC    PERFORMANCE.        Book  III. 

Praxilla  of  Sicyon  ^ ;  a  third  to  Simonides  ^ ;  and  the 
last  two  in  the  collection  of  Athenajus  to  Hybrias  of 
Crete.^  Stesichorus  *,  Sappho,  Alcaeus  ^,  and  Anacreon 
are  also  cited  among  the  authors  of  popular  scolia.^ 

From  what  has  been  said,  it  appears  that  the  name 
Scolion  applied  rather  to  the  mode  in  which  these 
pieces  of  poetry  were  introduced,  than  to  any  well 
defined  peculiarity  of  their  matter  or  style.  IMany 
therefore  of  the  smart  sententious  sallies  now  extant 
in  the  lyric  anthologies,  or  in  the  fragmentary  remains 
of  what  are  called  the  minor  Greek  poets,  might  have 
been,  and  very  possibly  were,  occasionally  adapted  to 
this  purpose.  Without  however  some  distinct  evi- 
dence that  they  were  so  adapted,  they  cannot  with 
propriety  be  ranked  under  the  head  of  Scolia.  This 
privilege  must  be  reserved  for  such  alone  as  are  so 
quoted  under  the  title  by  classical  authorities.  The 
whole  number  of  this  better  authenticated  class  which 
has  been  transmitted  amounts  to  from  thirty  to  forty. 
In  the  modern  collections  however  the  list  has  been 
swelled  to  upwards  of  fifty,  by  culling  passages  here 
and  there  from  the  stores  of  the  popular  anthologies, 
upon  no  consistent  principle  of  critical  selection.^ 

1  Schol.  Aristoph.  Thesm.  528.,  Vesp.  1242.;  conf.  Athen.  xv.  p.  694. 

2  Schol.  Aristoph.  Nub.  1358.,  Vesp.  1214.  sqq. 

3  Athen.  xv.  p.  696.;  Eust.  ad  Od.  vii.  125. 

*  Schol.  Aristoph.  Vesp.  1214.  sqq.  ^  Aristot.  Polit.  m.  10. 

^  Aristoph.  ap.  Athen.  xv.  p.  693.  sq. ;  conf.  Bergk,  Poett..  lyrr.  p.  818. 
sq. 

^  Ilgen,  Scolia ;  De  la  Nauze,  Mem.  Acad.  Inscr.  It  does  not  ap- 
pear on  what  ground  the  so-called  scolia  of  Pindar  have  been  com- 
prehended by  Athenaeus  and  Suidas  under  this  head  of  composition. 
They  are  odes  of  considerable  length,  arranged  in  antistrophic  form, 
similar  to  that  of  his  other  choral  compositions ;  nor  is  it  easy  to  see 
how  they  could  have  been  applied  to  the  same  purpose  as  the  scolia 
bove  illustrated.  They  were,  however,  more  or  less  of  a  convivial 
tendency  ;   and  it   seems  to  have  been  customary,  in  later  times,   to 


I 


nicia. 
omus. 


Ch.  II.  §  15.         ENCOMIA.       EPINICIA.       COMUS.  Ill 

ENCOMIA.       EPINICIA.       COMUS. 

15.  The  term  Encomium  denotes  originally  the  Encom 
ode  sung  at  the  Comus.  This  latter  title,  in  the  wider  ^^J 
sense,  comprehended  every  convivial  meeting  accom- 
panied by  dance,  song,  and  Bacchanalian  festivity ;  in 
its  more  dignified  application  it  denoted  a  higher 
order  of  festive  entertainment.  Such  were  the  public 
banquets  held  in  honour  of  distinguished  personages, 
of  a  warrior  after  a  victory  or  successful  campaign,  of 
a  magistrate  on  entering  office  ;  and  in  later  habitual 
practice,  of  the  conquerors  in  the  Olympian,  Pythian, 
and  other  great  national  games.  In  every  variety  of 
the  comus  a  main  part  of  the  ceremony  was  performed 
in  the  open  air ;  it  being  customary  even  for  private 
bands  of  revellers,  when  flushed  with  the  pleasures  of 
the  table,  to  sally  forth  with  music,  song,  and  dance, 
sometimes  to  the  sound  of  the  trumpet  \  into  the 
streets  and  public  thoroughfares.^  The  term  thus 
became  more  peculiarly  appropriated  to  this  latter 
part  of  the  entertainment,  which  in  its  turn  assumed 
the  character  of  a  distinct  ceremony.  Such  were 
the  escort  home,  or  serenade  ^  to  a  mistress,  or  after 
a  banquet,  to  some  favourite  guest ;  such,  in  a  nobler 
sense,  the  triumphal  procession  of  the  victorious 
hero  or  chief  to  the  temple  or  the  banqueting-hall ; 

comprehend  in  familiar  usage  all  the  more  spirited  or  pojDular  odes  of 
such  tendency  under  the  general  denomination  of  Scolia.  These  remarks 
also  apply  more  or  less  to  Aristotle's  ode  to  Virtue,  commonly  called  a 
paean,  but  which  Atheneeus  also  characterises  as  a  scolion.  Boeckh,  Fragm. 
Find.  p.  555.,  conf.  607.  sqq. ;  Athen.  xv.  p.  696. 

*  Aristot.  de  Audib.  xlix. 

^  Hesiod,  Shield  of  Here.  281. ;  Aristoph.  Plut.  1040.,  Thesmophor. 
104. ;  Plat.  Sympos.  p.  212.  223. ;  Xenoph.  Sympos.  ii.  i. 

^  Hermesianax,  vv.  38.  47.,  ap.  Athen.  xiii.  p.  598. ;  conf.  Ilgen, 
Scolia,  p.  cciii.  sqq. 


112  ORDERS   OF   LYRIC   PERFORMANCE.        Book  III. 

such,  by  a  still  wider  extension  of  the  analogy,  the 
deputation  or  mission  which  escorted  the  victor  in 
the  national  games  back  to  his  native  city. 

The  title  Encomium,  or  song  of  the  comus,  is  li- 
mited in  its  classical  acceptation,  as  denoting  an  order 
of  lyric  poetry,  solely  or  chiefly  to  the  panegyrical 
odes  performed  in  the  comi  of  a  more  dignified  cha- 
racter.^ It  is  hence  defined  by  the  antients  as  bear- 
ing the  same  relation  to  the  praises  of  men  as  the  hymn 
to  those  of  the  deity.^  No  work  of  this  class  dating 
prior  to  the  age  of  Pindar  has  been  preserved ;  but  the 
style  of  composition  could  hardly  fail  to  be  cultivated 
from  an  early  epoch,  as  one  of  the  most  obvious  and 
natural  applications  of  lyric  art.  The  ode  composed 
by  Polymnestus  for  the  Spartans  in  honour  of  Ter- 
pander,  and  that  by  Alcman  in  honour  of  Polymne- 
stus, may  be  ranked  under  the  head  of  Encomia. 
The  leading  poets  of  the  immediately  succeeding 
period  left  large  collections  of  encomia,  of  which  the 
most  celebrated  were  those  addressed  to  the  victors 
in  the  national  games.  These  are  usually  ranged 
under  a  separate  head  of  Epinicia^,  or  triumphal  en- 
comia. No  such  distinction  however  seems  to  have 
been  recognised  by  their  authors.  Pindar,  in  his 
frequent  appeals  to  his  own  epinician  odes,  avails 
himself  more  frequently  of  the  phrase  Encomia,  and 
other  cognate  derivatives  of  comus,  than  of  their 
proper  title.^  The  simple  term  Comus  is  also  used 
by  him  in  a  similar  sense ;  the  occasion  on  which  the 

^  Hence  to.  eirwlKLa  KcoficfBos  in  the  Orchomenian  inscriptions,  ap. 
Boeckb,  Staatsh.  n.  p.  364. ;  conf.  Corp.  Inscr.  Gr.  vol.  i.  p.  764.  sqq. 

^  Ammon.  v.  v/mvos  ;  Plato  de  Rep.  p.  607  a. 

3  Profl.  Chrestom.  p.  384.  Gaisf. 

*  Conf.  Boeckh,  Fragm.  Find.  p.  555.;  Ulrici,  Gesch.  der  Hell.  Diclitk. 
vol.  II.  p.  532.  sqq. 


Ch.  II.  §  13.  EPINICIA.  113 

encomium  was  performed  for  the  performance  itself. 
The  same  train  of  terminology  was  extended  to  the 
different  parts  of  the  composition.  Procomium  and 
Epicomium  denote  the  prologue  and  epilogue,  the 
exordium  and  winding  up  of  the  encomial  hymn,  or 
of  the  solemnity  in  which  it  was  introduced. 

The  character  of  these  odes  depended  in  some 
degree  on  that  of  the  festivity  which  they  adorned. 
The  crowning  of  the  victors,  the  religious  rites  in 
honour  of  their  triumph,  the  procession  to  or  from 
the  temple  or  the  banqueting-hall,  the  banquet  it- 
self, were  all  so  many  comi,  or  occasions  of  epini- 
cian  song.  Each  variety  of  celebration  involved  a 
corresponding  variety  of  style,  traces  of  which  are 
observable  in  the  collection  of  Pindar.  The  enco- 
mia however,  composed  in  honour  of  individual  vic- 
tors could,  it  is  obvious,  rarely  if  ever  be  prepared 
for  the  actual  occasions  of  their  triumph.  For  the 
more  immediate  celebration  of  the  achievement  there 
existed  certain  standard  odes  ^,  hymns  or  pa3ans 
it  would  appear  rather  than  encomia;  combining 
an  address  of  gratitude  to  the  presiding  gods  with 
praises  of  the  victorious  competitor.  The  encomia 
proper  were  usually,  if  not  invariably,  prepared 
subsequently,  often  long  after,  by  the  poet  ^,  and  per- 
formed in  the  festivities  instituted  in  honour  of 
the  achievement  in  the  native  locality  of  the  con- 
queror. The  anniversary  of  more  distinguished  suc- 
cesses seems  also  in  some  instances  to  have  been 
kept  by  a  revival  of  old,  or  the  composition  of  new 
encomial  odes,  in  honour  of  each  recurring  occasion. 
High    prices  were  paid  to   the  more   popular   lyric 

^  Piud.  01.  IX.  iiiit.,  coiif.  Scbol.  ad  loc.  ;  Licbel  ad  ArcLiloch.  frg.  77. 
'*  01.  XI.  init. ;  Pyth.  ii.  125. ;  Nem.  in.  140.     Schol.  Pyth.  ii.  6. 
VOL.  III.  I 


114  ORDERS   OF    LYRIC    PERFORMANCE.         Book  m 

poets  for  their  services.  Pindar  himself  ^  frequently 
alludes  to  the  venality  of  his  muse ;  which  his  commen- 
tators stigmatise  by  the  harsh  epithets  of  mercenary 
and  avaricious.^ 

The  epinician  ode,  judging  from  the  extant  col- 
lection of  Pindar,  the  standard  models  of  this  style, 
was  sometimes  monostrophic,  a  single  form  of  stro- 
phe being  continued  from  beginning  to  end;  some- 
times antistrophic,  consisting  of  two  strophes  and 
an  epode,  recurring  in  the  same  order  throughout. 
As  a  general  rule  the  Dorian  rhythm  was  preferred, 
although  frequently  varied,  to  suit  the  character  of 
the  subject,  into  the  ^Eolian  or  Lydian.  In  his 
longer  compositions,  Pindar  at  times  imparts  to  his 
text  something  of  an  epic  character,  by  the  introduc- 
tion of  mythical  legends  connected  with  the  victor's 
birthplace  or  lineage,  or  with  the  scene  of  his  triumph. 
The  style  of  such  encomia  as  were  not  of  a  strictly 
epinician  character  appears  to  have  been  similar. 
No  entire  poem  has  been  transmitted  under  the  title 
of  Encomium  ;  but  several  odes  included  in  Pindar's 
collection  under  the  common  head  of  Epinicia,  belong 
properly  speaking  to  the  purely  encomial  order  of 
composition. 

EROTICA.       GAIVIELIA,    OR   BRIDAL   SONGS. 

Erotica.  16.   The  uuivcrsal   prevalence   and  popularity  of 

the  class  of  poems  which  fall  under  the  general 
head  of  Erotica,  or  love  songs,  render  superfluous 
any  detailed  notice  of  their  object  or  character.  The 
most  celebrated  authors  in  this  department  during 
the  present  period  are  :  Alcman,  of  the  Dorian  school; 

1  Pyth.  II.  125.,  XI.  62.  ;  Isthm.  u.  10. 
^  Schol.  ad  Nem.  vn.  25. ;  Isthm.  v.  2. 


Ch.  II.  §  16,       LOVE    SONGS.       BRIDAL   SONGS.  115 

Sappho  and  Alca^us,  of  the  iEolian  or  Lesbian ;  and 
Mimnermus,  of  the  Ionian  school.  The  erotic  odes 
of  the  three  former  poets  are  almost  exclusively  of 
the  purely  melic  order,  and  in  monostrophic  forms. 
Mimnermus  composed  solely  or  chiefly  in  elegiac 
measure.  Such  effusions,  though  called  forth  by  hu- 
man objects  of  adoration  alone,  occasionally  in  so  far 
partake  of  a  sacred  character  as  to  assume  the  form 
of  addresses  to  the  deities  whose  countenance  and  fa- 
vour were  invoked.  Such  for  example  is  the  most 
brilliant  of  aU  love  songs,  the  Invocation  of  Venus 
by  Sappho. 

Gamelia,  or  bridal  sona:s,  are  classed  under  two  "y"f"^'''' 

'  o  7  Epithala- 

heads :  fi.^st  those  called  Hymensea,  sung  at  the  mar-  mia. 
riage  festival ;  secondly  the  Epithalamia,  or  bed- 
chamber songs,  performed  on  the  night  of  the  cere- 
mony, as  a  serenade  or  vigil,  in  front  of  the  door  or 
below  the  window  of  the  newly  wedded  couple.  The 
epithalamia  are  again  subdivided  into  the  Lulling 
song  and  the  Waking  song.^  The  former  was  sung 
during  the  early  part  of  the  night,  the  latt  •  towards 
the  hour  of  rising.  The  hymenaeal  choias  is  de- 
scribed by  Homer  in  the  Shield  of  Achilles.^  The 
bride  is  there  led,  amid  the  blaze  of  torches,  the 
music  of  harps  and  flutes,  and  the  frolicsome  dance 
and  song  of  youths  and  maidens,  from  her  own 
chamber  to  that  of  her  husband.  The  invocations  or 
exclamations  uttered  during  this  more  jovial  portion 
of  the  ceremony,  whether  forming  part  of  the  pro- 
cessional ode,  or  thrown  out  at  random  by  the  crew 

'  Schol.  ad  Theocrlt.  Idyll,  xviii. ;  conf.  Ammon.  de  Differ,  v.  yafj.rtKios  ; 
Procl.  Chrest.  p.  385.  Gaisf. 

k*  II.  xvni.  490.  sqq. ;  conf.  Hesiod,  Scut.  Hei'C.  273.  sqq. 


116  ORDERS   OF   LYRIC   PERFORMANCE.        Book  I[I. 

of  attendants,  seem,  from  extant  examples,  to  have 
been  not  always  of  the  most  delicate  description.^ 

These  songs,  as  may  be  supposed,  formed  from  a 
very  early  period  a  popular  branch  of  lyric  compo- 
sition, whether  in  honour  of  hero  or  heroine,  living 
or  dead,  real  or  imaginary.  The  earliest-mentioned 
example  is  Hesiod's  Epithalamium  of  Peleus  and 
Thetis.  Alcman^  also  availed  himself  of  this,  among 
other  modes  of  honouring  the  sex  which  formed  the 
favourite  subject  of  his  muse  ;  and  Sappho  left  an 
entire  book  of  hymenaea'^  several  of  which,  as  will 
be  seen  hereafter,  seem  to  have  partaken  of  the  dra- 
matic character.  In  the  metre  of  these  compositions 
no  definite  rule  is  observable.  Hesiod,  it  need  scarcely 
be  remarked,  uses  the  hexameter.  Sappho  occasionally 
employs  the  same  measure,  in  addition  to  her  own 
favourite  combinations  of  more  purely  melic  rhythm. 
The  hexameter  is  also  preferred  by  Theocritus.  The 
invocations,  "  0  Hymen  !  0  Hymenseus  !  "  addressed 
to  the  patron  deity  of  the  rite,  were  habitually  in- 
troduced as  a  sort  of  burden  or  epode,  in  all  these 
varieties  of  metrical  arrangement.'* 

MILITARY   MUSIC.       EMBATERIA. 

Military  17.    Two   kiuds    of  military   music   may   be   dis- 

tinguished ;  the  first  comprising  every  species  of  ode 
or  song  adapted,  on  ordinary  festive  occasions,  to 
inspire  or  maintain  warlike  enthusiasm  ;  the  second 
may  be  defined  as  war  music  in  the  narrower  sense, 
marches,  charges,  (embateria,   enoplia).     In  Homer 

'  Boeekh,  Explic.  Find.  Pyth.  nr.  p.  257, 
^  Welck.  Praef.  ad  Fragin.  p.  3. 
*  Sapph.  frg.  XXXVI.  sqq.  Gaisf. 

''  Allusion  occurs  in  later  times  to  a  "  dithyramblc  hymenseum,"  or 
hymcuseal  dithyrambus.     Athen.  x.iv.  p.  637. 


music. 


Ch.  II.  §  17.  MILITARY   MUSIC.  117 

mention  is  made  of  the  first  kind  alone.  The  cele- 
bration of  the  exploits  and  heroes  of  the  olden  time 
is  described  as  a  favourite  recreation  of  his  warriors. 
The  triumphal  paean  is  also  sung  by  the  army  in 
chorus,  on  their  march  back  to  the  camp  after  a 
victory.  But  nowhere  does  the  poet  allude  to  the 
advance  or  conflict  of  troops  as  directed  by  any  other 
species  of  sound  than  the  shout  of  war ;  and  even 
that,  among  his  own  countrymen,  was  restrained 
until  the  combat  had  actually  begun.  Their  advance 
is  characterised  as  terrible  from  its  very  silence. 

From  the  earliest  epoch  however,  at  whicu  trace 
exists  of  any  scientific  cultivation  of  the  lyric  art, 
there  is  suflicient  proof  that  neither  of  the  above 
departments  of  martial  poetry  was  overlooked. 

To  the  first  of  the  two  belong  the  elegiac  odes  of  war  songs. 
Callinus,  which  claim  to  be  the  earliest  ext  ant  produc- 
tions of  the  Lyric  Muse.  The  elegies  of  Tyrt^eus,  a 
younger  contemporary  of  Callinus,  were  also  for  the 
most  part  of  the  martial  order.  They  were  sung, 
consistently  with  Spartan  usage,  at  the  meals  of  the 
soldiers,  after  the  ordinary  convivial  paean,  sometimes 
in  chorus,  sometimes  by  single  performers  in  compe- 
tition, the  victor  receiving  as  his  prize  from  the  pole- 
march  an  extra  ration  of  butcher  meat.^  They  were 
also  chanted  in  chorus  before  the  tent  door  of  the 
king  or  commander  in  chief.  ^ 

The  military  music  of  the  second  kind  was  little  Embateria, 
cultivated,  even  in  historical  times,  except  among  the  °'^™'*'*'^  '^'" 
Spartans.     Their  peean  embaterius,  a  hymn  invoking 
the  god  of  war  or  other  patron  deities,  commenced 
immediately  after  the  order  to  advance,  and  continued 

1  Philoch.  ap.  Athen.  xiv.  p.  630. 
•i  Lycurg.  Orat.  contr.  Leocr.  xxviii. 
I  3 


118  ORDERS    OF   LYRIC    PERFORMANCE.        Book  HI. 

during  the  charge  and  assault.  The  air  was  called 
the  Castorean  Melody^,  after  the  Tyndarid  Castor, 
one  of  the  popular  martial  demigods  of  Sparta,  and 
was  accompanied  by  wind  instruments  disposed  in 
different  parts  of  the  line.  Its  character  was  impres- 
sive rather  than  wild  or  turbulent ;  the  object  being, 
in  unison  with  the  genius  of  Spartan  warfare,  to 
inspire  steady  determination  rather  than  furious 
ardour  for  the  attack.  The  measure  preferred  was 
the  anapjsstic,  as  the  most  natural  march  time,  and 
peculiarly  expressive  in  its  cadence  of  stern  energetic 
■"esolution. 

The  custom  of  attacking  in  regular  march  step  to 
the  sound  of  music,  is  frequently  noticed  by  the  an- 
tients  as  a  peculiarity  of  Spartan  discipline^;  nor  is 
there  any  allusion  to  the  same  practice  in  any  other 
Greek  state,  with  the  partial  exception  of  the  kindred 
Dorian  republics  of  Crete.^  Battle  paeans  were  also 
sung  by  the  troops  of  Athens,  and  of  other  members 
of  the  confederacy,  before  the  charge,  or  during  its 
progress*:  the  performance,  however,  of  these  odes 
does  not  seem  to  have  been  combined  with  an  instru- 
mental accompaniment,  nor,  consequently,  to  have 
stood  in  similar  close  connexion  with  the  discipline 
or  movements  of  the  line.  In  Attic  warfare  the  in- 
strumental music,  if  any,  seems  to  have  been  limited 

1  Plut.  in  Lycurg.  xxii.,  de  Mus.  xxvi. ;  Find.  Isth.  i.  21. ;  Schol. 
Find.  Fyth.  ii.  127.  sqq. ;  conf.  Miill.  Dor.  vol.  ii.  p.  333.  sqq. ;  Boeckb, 
de  Metr,  Find.  p.  276. 

""  Thucyd.  v.  Ixx. ;  Polyb.  iv.  xx. ;  Athen.  xiv.  p.  626.  630  f.  ;  Flut.  de 
Mus.  XXVI. ;  Lucian.  de  Salt.  x. ;  Cic.  Tusc.  ii.  ]  5.  ;  Dio.  Chrys.  Orat. 
xxxir.  vol.  ii.  p.  379.  Reisk. ;  Valer.  Max.  ii.  vi.  2. 

2  Heracl.  Polit.  iii.;  Athen.  xii.  517  A.,  xiv.  627. ;  Flut.  de  Mus.  xxvt, 
*  Thucyd.  i.  I.,  iv.  xliii.,  vn.  xliv. ;  Xenoph.  Hist.  Hell.  n.  iv.  17. 

Anab.  i.  viii.  12.  alibi. 


Ch.  II.  §18.  POPULAR   SONGS.  119 

to  the  alarum  or  signal  sounds  of  the  trumpet.^  The 
term  Pasan  is  also  common  to  another  briefer  war 
song  or  shout,  uttered  in  the  midst  of  the  engagement, 
for  the  purpose  of  rallying  the  troops  when  disordered 
or  stimulating  the  pursuit  when  victorious.  The 
paeans  of  this  class  among  the  Dorian  states  were  so 
much  the  same,  as  to  render  it,  when  Dorian  troops 
were  opposed  to  each  other,  difficult  to  distinguish 
between  friend  and  foe.^ 

POPULAR   SONGS. 

18.  It  still  remains  to  notice  that  extensive  class  Popular 
of  miscellaneous  lyric  poems,  for  which  our  native  Deflnition 
vocabulary  affords  no  better  title  than  the  somewhat  °^" 
indefinite  one  of  "  popular  songs."  ^     These  compo- 
sitions^, though  hardly  falling,  like  those  above  il- 
lustrated,   within  the  limits  of  cultivated  lyric  art, 
cannot  with  propriety  be  overlooked  in  any  attempt 
to  form  a  just  estimate  of  the  spirit  or  variety  of 
Greek  poetical  genius.     The  distinction,  indeed,  be- 
tween  "popular  song"  and   the  more  regular   pro- 
ductions of  the  Lyric  Muse  is  in  no  age  or  country 
very  accurately  marked ;  and  least  of  all  perhaps  in 
a  country  like  Greece,  where  almost  every  exercise  of 
human  ingenuity,   especially  in  the  walks  of  imagi- 

'  Xenoph.  Hist.  Hell.  v.  ii.  11.;  Athen.  xiv.  p.  626. ;  Polyb.  iv.  xx. ; 
Homer,  Batrachomyom.  201,  -  Thucyd.  vii.  xliv. 

'  Better  expressed,  certainly,  by  the  German  term  Volkslieder. 

*  A  notice  of  their  numerous  varieties  of  form  or  subject  will  be  found 
in  Ilgen,  Scolia,  p.  xiv.  sqq.  ;  conf.  Athen.  xiv.  p.  618.  sqq.  Attention 
will  here  be  devoted  solely  to  the  more  interesting  among  the  few  of 
which  either  specimens  or  detailed  descriptions  have  been  transmitted. 
Collections  of  these  specimens  will  be  found  in  Bergk's  Poett.  lyrr.  p.  878., 
and  Schneidewin's  Delect.  Poes.  Gr.  pt.  in.  p.  461.  Both  collections, 
however,  include  several  passages  not  properly  falling  within  the  defi- 
nition of  popular  song. 

1  4 


L 


120  ORDERS   OF   LYRIC   PERFORMANCE.        Book  IH. 

native  art  or  literature,  was  so  closely  identified  with 
the  sympathies  of  the  whole  population,  that  it  could 
hardly  fail  to  become  an  object  of  artificial  culture 
as  well  as  of  subtle  definition  and  commentary.     The 
following  appear  to  be  the  requisites,  more  or  less 
indispensable,  to  entitle  a  poem  to  the  character  of 
"  popular  song."     First,  the  subject  should  be  of  a 
strictly  popular  nature,  should  be  intimately  associated 
with  the  interests  and  feelings  of  the  whole,  or  of 
some  considerable  portion  of  the  mass  of  the  people, 
especially  of  the  lower  orders.     Secondly,  the  song 
itself  should   be   the   spontaneous  fruit   of  popular 
genius.     It  should  be,  if  not  necessarily  anonymous, 
the  production,  at  least,  of  some  comparatively  sim- 
ple untaught  minstrel,   composing  under  the  influ- 
ence  of  an   immediate   personal   association   of  his 
own   habits   and  sympathies  with  the  subject  cele- 
brated.    Ascertained  compositions  by  accomplished 
professional  poets  artistically  adapting  their  talents 
to  the  manufacture  of  verses  suited  to  the  vulgar 
taste,  even  where  such  compositions  prove  so  tho- 
roughly  congenial    to   that   taste    as   to    pass   into 
poetical  proverbs  or  commonplaces,  cannot  with  pro- 
priety be  ranged,  as  they  occasionally  have  been  by 
modern   critics,   under  the  head   of  popular  songs.; 
otherwise,  much  of  the  poetry  of  almost  every  dis- 
tinguished lyric  master  of  this  period  would  require 
to   be   ranged   under    that   head.       The    distinction 
here  drawn  may  be  illustrated  by  the   case  of  the 
celebrated  "  Mitylena3an    Mill  Song,"    still  in  whole 
or  in  part  preserved.     This  was  the  ditty  by  which 
the    Lesbian    women   were   wont    to    enliven    their 
labours  at   the  mill,  during   or   subsequent   to   the 
crisis   in   the  annals  of  their  native   republic  (590 


Ch.  II.  §  18.  POPULAR   SONGS.  121 

B.C.)  which  resulted  in  the  supreme  power  being 
conferred  on  Pittacus  by  his  fellow-citizens ;  or,  as 
the  faction  opposed  to  him  represented  the  case,  in 
his  tyrannical  usurpation  of  that  power :  ^ 

xa)  yocfi  Uirraxos  aXsl 
[xsyaXag  MiTu'kavas  ^cx.tn'ksocov. 

Gi'ind,  mill,  grind ! 

For  king  Pittacus  to  his  royal  mind 

Tliis  Mitylenaean  state  will  grind. 

There  is,  perhaps,  no  remnant  of  Greek  lyric 
poetry  which  can  claim  with  better  right  than  these 
few  versos,  on  internal  grounds  at  least,  the  cha- 
racter of  "  popular "  song.  If  however,  as  some 
commentators  ^  have  very  groundlessly  surmised,  the 
passage  formed  part  of  an  ode  composed  hj  the 
poet  Alcseus,  the  political  opponent  of  Pittacus,  for 
the  use  of  the  mill-grinders  of  his  own  faction,  the  case 
would  be  different.  The  fragment  would  then  possess 
no  better  claim  to  a  popular  character  than  many  other 
emanations  from  the  satirical  genius  of  the  same  poet, 
of  Archilochus,  and  of  other  leading  lyric  satirists, 
which  obtained  permanent  vogue  and  currency  in  the 
mouths  of  those  members  or  masses  of  the  community 
to  whose  tastes  or  habits  they  happened  to  be  congenial. 
Consistently  with  the  above  limitation,  the  number 
of  extant  specimens  of  Greek  lyric  poetry  which  can 
properly  claim  attention  under  the  present  head  of 
subject  is  not  very  large.  It  is,  however,  probable 
that  a  considerable  portion  of  that  number  date  from 
this  more  primitive  age  of  the  national  minstrelsy. 

1  Plut.  Conv.  Sept.  S  xiv. 

*  Ap.  Welcker,  Sappho,  Kleine  Schr.  vol.  i.  p.  11 7. 


specimens. 


122  ORDERS    OF    LYRIC    PERFORMANCE.        Book  m. 

That  such  is  the  case  is  established,  in  regard  to 
many  of  the  fragments,  by  their  own  internal  evi- 
dence. It  is  also  certain,  as  a  general  rule,  not  only 
that  the  popular  Muse  is  more  prolific  in  early  times 
than  in  epochs  of  more  advanced  civilisation,  but 
that  such  of  her  productions  as  emanate  from  the 
former  periods  are  more  apt  than  those  of  later  origin 
to  obtain  a  permanent  hold  on  the  national  mind. 
Extant  19.  Two  classcs  of  "  popular  "   songs,   possessing 

claims  to  remote  antiquity,  have  been  partially  illus- 
trated in  the  foregoing  pages.  The  one  comprises  the 
Linus  songs,  under  their  several  varieties;  whether  as 
joyous  accompaniments  of  the  vintage  procession  and 
harvest-home,  or  as  rustic  laments  over  the  declining 
year  and  the  ephemeral  duration  of  human  life  and 
happiness.  The  other  class  is  that  of  Mendicant 
songs,  or,  as  we  shall  here  prefer  designating  them 
by  a  more  gracious,  though  not  perhaps  more  ex- 
pressive phrase,  of  "  Charity  songs."  Two  specimens 
of  this  style  of  composition  have  already  been  no- 
ticed :  the  Iresione,  or  Lay  of  the  Wool-chaplet ;  and 
the  Epicichlides,  or  Lay  of  the  Fieldfares.^  Although 
both  these  poems  passed  current  under  the  title  of 
Homeric,  and  although  the  former,  which  alone  has 
survived,  is  in  not  inelegant  hexameter  style,  both 
may  be  considered,  in  respect  to  their  origin  and 
tendency,  as  better  entitled  to  rank  under  the  head 
of  popular  ballad  than  of  polite  literature.  This 
remark  may  perhaps  be  extended  to  the  Caminus, 
or  Potter's  Oven,  also  above  illustrated  as  part  of 
the  Homeric  collection.  Another  variety  of  Charity 
song  was  the  Chelidonisma,  or  Lay  of  the  Swal- 
low.    This  was  a  congratulatory  address  sung  by  the 

1  Book  n.  Ch.  xix.  §  15.  17. 


Ch.  n.  §  19.  POPULAR   SONGS.  123 

mendicant  minstrels  in  front  of  the  doors  of  their 
wealthy  patrons,  on  the  arrival  of  spring,  or  first 
appearance  of  the  swallow  ;  the  Epicichlides  being,  it 
would  appear,  similarly  connected  with  the  autumn 
season,  or  season  of  the  chase.  The  following  are 
the  opening  lines  of  a  characteristic  Rhodian  speci- 
men of  the  Chelidonisma  preserved  by  Athena3us :  ^ 

xaTvOLg  cbpag  oiyotxrUf 
xaT^oog  Iviauroug' 
sTsrl  yatTTspa  Xsuxcty 
IttI  vCora  [xi7\.aiva. 
TT^'.XdSaV  (TU  TTpoxvxXst 
ex  TTiovog  o)xou' 
oiivou  rs  MyratrrpoVi 
Tupoo  T£  xavKrrpQV^ 
xa)  TTopva  ■^s'kihuyv^ 

XOU   TOV  T^SXiSlTUV, 

oox  aTTOi^eiTai.    .    .    x.r.X, 

The  swallow  is  here,  the  swallow  is  here, 

She  comes  to  proclaim  the  reviving  year ; 

With  her  jet-black  hood,  and  her  milk-white  breast, 

She  is  come,  she  is  come,  at  our  behest, 

The  harbinger  of  the  beautiful  spring, 

To  claim  your  generous  offering. 

Let  your  bountiful  door  its  wealth  outpour. 

What  is  little  to  you  is  to  us  great  store ; 

A  bunch  of  dry  figs,  and  a  savoury  cruse 

Of  pulse  pottage  the  swallow  will  not  refuse  ; 

With  a  basket  of  cheese  and  a  barley  cake, 

And  a  cup  of  red  wine  our  thirst  to  slake.  .  .  &c. 

These  periodical  effusions    of  mendicant  minstrelsy 

*  VIII.  p.  360,;  Bergk,  p.  882.  A  similar  "Lay  of  the  Swallow" 
(^X^Xiiiva)  is  still  sung  by  the  modern  Greeks,  at  the  same  season  and 
with  the  same  object.  Faurlel,  Chants  popul.  de  la  Grece,  vol.  i.  pref. 
p.  xxviii.  vol.  II.  p.  256. 


124  ORDERS   OF   LYRIC   PERFORMANCE.        Book  HI. 

possess  also  this  claim  to  the  more  honourable  title  of 
Charity  songs,  that  the  perarabulatory  visits  with 
which  they  were  connected  appear,  from  several 
classical  notices,  to  have  really  assumed  a  certain 
form  and  privilege  of  charitable  institution,  or  rude 
"poor-law,"  somewhat  analogous  to  the  "  miseri- 
cordia "  of  the  modern  Italian  towns.  They  are 
described  at  least  as  having  been  sanctioned  by 
legislative  authority,  under  the  title  of  Agermus,  or 
Collection,  in  seasons  of  scarcity ;  especially  by  Cleo- 
bulus  "  tyrant "  of  Lindus,  a  distinguished  statesman 
of  this  period  and  one  of  the  Seven  Sages. ^ 

To  the  plaintive  order  of  pastoral  ditty,  of  which 
the  song  of  Linus  was  the  most  distinguished  repre- 
sentative, may  be  numbered  the  "  Lament  of  Ca- 
lyce."  ^  This  primitive  lay  was  worked  up,  as  we 
shall  see  in  the  sequel,  into  a  pathetic  love  romance, 
by  the  distinguished  lyric  poet  Stesichorus.  It  was 
however  in  its  origin  merely  a  pastoral  dirge  or 
wail,  symbolising,  under  the  figure  of  the  hopeless 
love  and  premature  death  of  the  nymph  Calyce,  or 
"  Flower-bud,"  the  evanescence  of  female  youth, 
beauty,  and  happiness ;  just  as  the  Linus  song  sym- 
bolised, by  the  calamitous  adventures  of  its  hero, 
the  equally  ephemeral  duration  of  the  same  blessings 
in  the  male  sex.  The  analogy  between  the  two  lays 
has,  accordingly,  been  pointed  out  and  illustrated  by 
the  ingenious  and  elegant  Athena3us,  to  whom  we  are 
indebted  for  so  rich  and  valuable  a  fund  of  notices 
concerning   all  these  more  delicate  details  of  Greek 

1  Theogn.  ap.  Athen.  vui.  p.  360.  Similar  to  the  Cbelidonisma  was 
the  Colophonian  Agermus  called  Coronisma,  or  the  Crow-song;  of  which, 
however,  no  "popular"  specimen  has  been  preserved.  Athen.  viii, 
p.  359.  ;  Eustath.  ad  Od.  p.  1914. 

2  Aristoxenus  ap.  Athen.  xiv.  p.  G19. 


Ch.  II.  §  19.  POPULAR   SONGS.  125 

manners  and  literature.  From  the  same  Athenaeus 
we  learn  that,  as  the  lament  of  Linus  was  habitually 
sung  by  the  male  order  of  rustic  mourners,  the  cele- 
bration of  the  woes  of  Calyce  was  similarly  appropri- 
ated to  the  melancholy  muse  of  female  minstrels. 

Peculiar  also  to  the  minstrelsy  of  the  fair  sex  was 
another  pastoral  lament  ^,  entitled  Harpalyce^,  or  the 
"  Maid  of  twilight."  This  luckless  nymph  also,  like 
Calyce,  pines  and  dies  of  grief,  when  deserted  or 
despised  by  the  youth  of  her  atfections.  Her  fate  is 
a  plain  figure  of  the  "  dying  "  or  "  parting  hour  of 
day,"  which  has  supplied  material  for  passages  of 
great  excellence  to  illustrious  modern  poets. ^ 

A  third  beautiful  variety  of  poetical  form,  in  which 
the  same  melancholy  association  of  ideas  was  em- 
bodied, was  the  Lay  of  Eriphanis,  or  the  "  Maiden 
of  morning  dawn."  This  ill-fated  heroine  was  also 
victim  of  an  unrequited  love,  the  object  of  which  was 
a  beautiful  hunter  youth  named  Menalcas.  She, 
however,  in  the  varied  spirit  of  the  allegory,  is  not 
described  as  dying,  but  "  in  her  disconsolate  state, 
she  roams  over  the  mountains  and  through  the  forest 
glades  in  the  track  of  her  beloved,  wailing  her  sad 
destiny  in  notes  so  touching,  that  not  only  the  human 

^  Atlien.  loc.  cit. ;  Aristox.  ap.  eund. 

'■*  From  apird^u  (apTroi)  and  \vKri ;  conf.  a/x^iXiiKri. 

*  Especially  that  exquisitely  beautiful  one  of  Dante  ! 

"  Era  gia  1'  ora  che  volge  '1  desio 

Ai  naviganti,  e  'ntenerisce  il  cuore, 
Lo  di  ch'  han  detto  ai  dolci  amici,  addio  : 
E  che  lo  nuovo  peregrin  d'  amore 
Punge,  se  ode  squilla  di  lontano, 
Che  paja  il  giorno  pianger  che  si  muore." 

The  last  two  verses  have  been  paraphrased  by  Gray,  but  with  an  efiTcct 
far  inferior  to  that  of  the  original,  in  his  celebrated  line, 

"  The  curfew  tolls  the  kucU  of  parting  day." 


126  ORDERS   OF   LYRIC   PERFORMANCE.        Book  III. 

hearts  most  callous  to  the  pangs  of  love  melt  with 
sympathy  for  her  grief,  but  even  the  most  ferocious 
wild  beasts  compassionate  her  lot."  ^  The  burden  of 
her  favourite  lay  was  : 

[xaxpai  hf/usg  !  (o  MlvaXxa  ! 

Tall  grow  the  forest  trees  !     Oh  Menalcas ! 

The  sentiment  of  romantic  musing  melancholy,  which 
runs  through  the  whole  of  this  more  plaintive  order 
of  rustic  song,  is  one  which  naturally  arises  in  the 
contemplative  mind  among  scenes  of  mountain  soli- 
tude or  retired  pastoral  life,  such  as  those  in  which 
Greece  so  greatly  abounds.  It  is  a  sentiment  not 
very  easy  to  define,  either  in  its  sources  or  influence. 
But  it  is  one,  the  charm  of  which  no  mind  suscep- 
tible of  the  finer  sympathies  of  our  nature  can  fail  in 
any  age  to  feel  and  appreciate  ;  a  charm  which  must, 
therefore,  have  exercised  a  proportionally  more  pow- 
erful sway  on  the  minds  of  so  imaginative  a  race  as 
the  primitive  Greeks. 

Another  more  cheerful  order  of  rustic  lay  was 
that  called  Anthema,  or  "  the  Flower  song,"  chanted, 
it  would  appear,  on  the  approach  of  spring,  and  of 
which  the  following  couplet  is  extant,  apparently  a 
responsive  chorus  or  burden :  ^ 

1.  TTOU    [XOl     TCC    po'oa,     TTOU    [JLOl    TOL    !«,     TTOU    ^01   TO,  XcCka, 

0-gX/va  ; 

2.  raSi  TOi  po8a,  tclVi  to,  ia,  Ta6i  ra  xaXa  (rk'Kiva.. 

Where  are  my  roses,  where  are  my  violets,  where  is  my  beautiful 
I 
parsley  ? 

Thy  roses  are  here,  thy  violets  are  here,  and  here  is  thy  beautiful 

parsley ! 

'  Clearcb.  ap.  Athen.  xiv.  p.  610.  °  Athen.  xiv.  p.  629. 


Ch.  II.  §  19.  POPULAR   SONGS.  127 

Several  lively  specimens  of  nursery  rhyme,  or 
juvenile  poetical  pastime,  have  also  been  preserved. 
One  of  these  is  interesting  from  the  apparent  identity 
of  character  between  the  entertainment  of  which  it 
formed  part,  and  many  of  those  common  in  the 
juvenile  circles  of  the  present  day;  showing  that, 
even  in  this  department  of  literature,  there  is  nothing 
new  under  the  sun.  The  game  is  played  by  young 
maidens,  and  the  scene  is  the  sea-shore.  One  of  the 
party  called  Chelone,  or  the  Tortoise,  sits  down  on 
the  beach ;  the  others,  dancing  round  her,  address 
her  and  she  replies :  ^ 

Xop.   P^sAj  p^£Xa)i/>2,  Ti  TTOBig  ^  ev  Tip  [X£(rip'y 

Xop.   0  S'  SHyovog  (TOO  rl  ToSiV^  aTriuT^sro  ; 
XeA.   T^suxdv  acj^'  'ittttcov  slg  QaXaa-tray  akcuTO. 

Chor.     Lady  Tortoise,  in  the  middle, 

What's  the  work  you're  busy  in  ? 
Tort.     A  stock  of  wool  fresh  from  Miletus 

I  have  got  to  card  and  spin. 
Chor.     And  your  son,  good  Lady  Tortoise, 

How  by  his  sad  death  came  he  ? 
Tort.     From  the  back  of  our  white  horses  ^ 

Off  he  leapt  into  the  sea. 

Some  of  the  longer  lyric  fragments  claiming  a 
place  in  the  existing  "popular"  collection,  belonged 
to  the  ruder  more  turbulent  order  of  lobacchic  or 

*  Pollux,  IX.  125.;  Eustath.  ad  Od.  p.  1914.  Another  similar  game 
called  x^P°->  or  the  Pipkin  (Poll.  ix.  113.),  was  played  by  boys,  of 
whose  address  and  response  the  following  smart  iambic  monometers 
formed  part : 

iyiti  Mi'Sas  .   .   . 

This  pastime  seems  to  have  resembled  the  modern  game  of  Hot  cockles. 
2  Conf.  Maitt.  Dial.  Ling.  Gr.  p.  8  a.  230  d. 

^  The  white  waves,  or  breakers. 


128  ORDERS   OF   LYRIC   PERFORMANCE.        Book  III. 

Plitillic  entertainments  above  illustrated ;  and  though 
highly  characteristic  as  specimens  of  their  kind,  are 
of  little  real  poetical  interest.  In  more  agreeable 
style  is  the  burden  of  the  Spartan  Trichoria\  the 
festival  jointly  celebrated  by  the  three  generations  of 
Spartan  citizens,  old  men,  youths,  and  boys : 

Tipovr.   a.y.sg  7ro;«'  r^jas^  aAx/jtxoi  vsavion. 

riaTSs^.  a^Ckg  Ss  y   kar(r6[Ji.s<rSct  ttoXT^o)  xappovsg. 

Old  men.    Brave  youths  we  were  in  days  gone  by ! 
Young  in.  Brave  youths  we  are  ;  if  ye  doubt,  ye  may  try  ! 
Boys.  Braver  youths  far  than  ye,  in  our  day  we  shall  be. 

Another  short  but  valuable  remnant  of  popular 
Spartan  poetry  is  quoted  by  Lucian  ^,  as  the  burden 
common  to  the  songs  by  which  some  of  the  livelier 
Lacedasmonian  dances  were  accompanied : 

TToppco  TTouhsgy  ToSa  [xsra^ars,  xai  X(o[xoi.^a.TS  ^iXriov ! 

I  ,  1 

Forward  boys  and  merrily  foot  it,  and  dance  it  better  and  better 

still! 

The  rhythm  of  this  line,  offering  a  spirited  combi- 
nation of  trochaic  and  dactylic  forms,  corresponds,  it 
may  be  remarked,  in  all  essential  respects  with  that 
of  the  modern  Neapolitan  tarantella.  As  Tarentum 
was  one  of  the  most  distinguished  of  Spartan  colonies, 
and  as  music  and  song  are  perhaps  the  departments 
of  national  custom  in  which  antient  taste  and  habit 
are  apt  to  remain  most  inveterate,  it  is  no  very  far- 
fetched inference,  that  we  have  in  the  Tarantella  a 
genuine  representative  of  some  of  the  popular  Laco- 
nian  dances. 

'  Plut.  Lye.  XXI.  ^  De  Salt.  x. ;  Bergk,  Poett.  lyrr.  p.  880. 


Cu.  III.  §1.         BIOGRAPIiy   OF   LYRIC    POETS.  129 


CHAP.  III. 

BIOGRAPHY  OF  LYRIC    POETS.      CALLINUS.       ARCHILOCHUS. 
SIMONIDES.       TYRT^US. 

1.    LEADING    LYRIC    POETS  OF  THIS    PERIOD,    AS  CLASSED    IN    THE  ALEXANDRIAN 

CANON. 2.  CALLINUS.       HIS  AGE  AS  COMPARED  WITH  THAT  OP  ARCHILOCHUS. 

3.    CHARACTER    WORKS     AND    TIMES    OF    CALLINUS. 4.    ARCHILOCHUS. 

5.    HIS    BIRTH    LIFE    AND     CHARACTER. 6.     DISAPPOINTED     LOVE     AND     RE- 
VENGE.    7.  PROMISCUOUS    IMPARTIALITY    OF    HIS    SATIRE,       HIS    DEATH.  

8.   HIS  GENIUS    AND    THAT    OF    HOMER    IN    THEIR    PARALLEL   AND  THEIR  CON- 
TRAST.  ?    REDEEMING    FEATURES    OF    HIS    MORAL    CHARACTER.       PERSONAL 

INDIVIDUALITY    OF   HIS  POETRY. 10.  ORIGINALITY    AND    FERTILITY   OF    HIS 

INVENTIVE  GENIUS.      DETAILS  OF  STYLE  AND  IMAGERY.      EPITHETS.     DIALECT. 

U.    METRICAL    ELEMENTS    OF    HIS    COMPOSITION.       CLASSIFICATION    OF    HIS 

WORKS. 12.    HIS    GENIUS    ILLUSTRATED    BY    HIS    REMAINS. 13.    REMARKS 

ON   THE    LOSS  OF  HIS  POEMS. 14.   SIMONIDES  OF  AMORGOS. 15.  HIS    POEM 

"  ON  WOMEN."       ORIGIN  OF    GREEK  POETICAL    SATIRE    AGAINST    THE    FEMALE 

SEX.         HESIOD.         PANDORA.  16.     STYLE      OF      THE      POEM      "  ON     WOMEN." 

OTHER    WORKS    OF    SIMONIDES. 17.  TYRTiEUS.       HIS    POPULAR    BIOGRAPHY. 

18.  ITS    AUTHENTICITY. 19.  HIS    AGE,    CHARACTER,    WORKS. 

1.  The  branches  of  composition  comprehended  in  the  Leading 
foregoing  general  view  of  Greek  lyric  poetry  may  be  of"Sis''^'* 
ranked  under  three  principal  heads  of  Eleo-iac,  Iambic,  p^^o'^-  ^* 

.  TIT    T  nil  .  ,    ,.     .    .  classed  in 

and  Lyric  proper,  or  Melic.  Ihis  subdivision,  if  not  theAiex- 
specifically  laid  down,  is  indirectly  sanctioned  by  the  canon." 
antient  grammarians,  in  their  appropriation  of  one  or 
other  of  the  above  titles  to  individual  authors,  on  the 
ground  of  their  preference  respectively  of  the  style  to 
which  such  title  belongs.  The  Alexandrian  list  or 
canon  ^  of  standard  melic  poets  for  the  flourishing 
age  of  art  comprises  but  nine  :  Alcman,  Stesichorus, 
Alcagus,  Sappho,  Ibycus,  Anacreon,  Simonides  (of 
Ceos),  Bacchylides,  Pindar.  The  works  of  these 
authors  are  limited  accordingly  to  melic  composition, 

'  Quint.  X.   i.  61.;    Anthol.   Pal.  ix.   epigr.   184.  571.;    Schol.  Find. 
Boeckh,  Prsef.  p.  7,  8. 

VOL.  III.  K 


130  BIOGRAPHY    OF   LYRIC    TOETS.  Book  nl. 

cither  exclusively,  or  with  rare  exception  in  favour 
of  the  elegy  or  iambic  trimeter.  Archilochus 
on  the  other  hand,  although  in  the  more  general 
sense  of  the  term  the  greatest  of  Greek  lyric  poets, 
and  so  characterised  by  antient  grammarians  ^,  was 
classed,  along  with  Simonides  of  Amorgos  and  Hip- 
ponax,  as  an  iambographer."^  Callinus,  Tyrtaeus,  and 
Mimnermus  rank  as  elegiac  authors.^  Even  this 
extended  classification  does  not  comprehend  several 
of  the  most  illustrious  names  in  the  annals  of  lyric 
art ;  those  for  example  of  Terpander,  Thaletas, 
Arion,  who,  though  distinguished  as  poets,  being 
still  more  celebrated  as  musical  composers,  were 
ranked  as  musicians,  or  as  the  antient  critics  express 
it,  as  harp-players  or  flute-players,  according  as  their 
taste  or  talent  happened  to  lie  in  the  department  of 
wind  or  string-instruments.  To  these,  with  other 
less  celebrated  artists  of  the  same  order,  a  distinct 
share  of  attention  has  already  been  devoted.  Arion 
alone,  in  consideration  of  his  special  celebrity  as  a 
poet,  will  claim  a  separate  notice  in  the  biographical 
departmeiit  of  our  subject.  Another  technical  dis- 
tinction might  be,  and  has  by  some  authors  on  the 
lyric  history  of  this  period  been,  founded  on  the  pe- 
culiar cultivation  of  certain  styles  in  certain  regions 
or  by  certain  races  ;  of  the  elegy  for  example  and 
iambus  by  Ionian  poets,  Callinus,  Archilochus,  Si- 
monides, Tyrtaeus,  Mimnermus,  Solon  ;  of  the  lighter 
melic  style  by  the  Cohans,  Alc^us,  Sappho,  and  their 
school ;  and  of  the  more  complicated  choric  orders 
of  composition  in  the  Dorian  states,  by  Alcraan,  Ari- 
on, and  Stesichorus.     These  various  subdistinctions 

^  Ap.  Liebel,  Archil.  Fragm.  p.  3. 

^  Procl.  Chrest.  Gaisf.  p,  380.  ;  Lucian.  Pseudol.  ii. 

3  Conf.  Procl.  p.  379. 


Ch.  Iir.  §  2.  CALLINUS.       700  B.C.  131 

however,  while  just  and  well-founded  in  themselves, 
and  hence  carefully  kept  in  view  in  the  foregoing  ge- 
neral history  of  lyric  art,  are  of  too  technical  a  nature, 
and  too  little  definite  in  their  application  to  individual 
cases,  to  form  an  appropriate  rule  of  biographical 
arrangement.  The  more  convenient  method  will  be 
to  comprise  the  whole  remaining  authors  of  this 
period,  elegiac,  iambic,  and  melic,  under  the  common 
head  of  Lyric,  and  treat  their  lives  and  works  in 
chronological  order.  It  happens  also  that  this  chro- 
nological succession  supplies  in  itself,  spontaneously,' 
about  as  near  an  approximation  to  a  generic  arrange- 
ment as  were  desirable,  or  perhaps  even  practicable, 
had  the  latter  method  been  purposely  preferred.^ 


CALLINUS.  700  B.C. 


2.  Among  these  earlier  votaries  of  the  Greek  Lyric  caiimus 
Muse,  the  palm  of  antiquity  has  usually  been  awarded  a" tom^-^"^* 
to  Callinus  of  Ephesus.-     The  only  author  on  whose  ^^^^^  "^^^^ 


^  The  authors  whose  lives  form  the  subject  of  the  present  chapter,  Cal- 
linus, Archilochus,  Simonides,  and  Tyrtseus,  were  all  cultivators  of  the 
Ionian  (either  the  elegiac  or  iambic)  styles  of  lyric  art.  Alcman,  Arion, 
Stesichorus,  and  the  other  poets  comprised  in  Ch.  iv.,  also  rank  together, 
both  in  the  order  of  their  time  and  of  their  more  properly  melic  or  cho- 
ral styles.  The  same  holds  good  of  Alcseus,  Sappho,  Erinna,  in  Ch.  v, 
Mimnermus,  while  dated,  though  doubtfully,  by  extant  authorities,  some- 
what earlier  than  the  leaders  of  the  Lesbian  school,  has,  in  consideration 
partly  of  his  personal  connexion  with  Solon,  partly  of  his  own  elegiac 
style,  been  included  in  the  chapter  (vi.)  devoted  to  the  Attic  legislator 
and  his  seven  fellow-sages,  with  whom  the  annals  of  this  period  close. 
In  the  date  attached  to  each  name,  where  a  single  number  occurs,  it 
indicates  the  probable  acme  or  flourishing  period  of  the  poet's  life.  The 
double  number  indicates  the  period  of  time  over  which  the  existing  more 
authentic  notices  of  him  extend. 

'■^  Bach,  Callini  Carmina,  Lips.  183L;  Schneidewin,  Delect.  Poes.  Gr. 
p.  1. ;  Bergk,  Poett.  lyrr.  Gr.  p.  303.  (first  ed.)  ;  Gaisf  Poett.  minn.  vol. 
III.  ed.  Lips.  p.  224.  The  remains  are  quoted  according  to  the  arrange- 
ment of  Bach. 

B  2 


that  of  Ar- 
chilochus. 


lt^2  BIOGRAPHY    OF    LYIUC    POETS.  Book  III. 

beliiilf  a  counter-claim  has  with  any  plausibility  been 
advanced  is  Archilochus.  The  balance  of  opinion  in 
favour  of  the  Ephesian  poet,  rests  chiefly  on  a  com- 
parison of  certain  allusions  in  their  respective  works 
to  the  events  of  contemporary  history.^  During  the 
latter  part  of  the  eiglith  and  commencement  of  the  se- 
venth century  B.C.,  Asia  Minor  was  invaded  by  Scythian 
hordes,  called  Cimmerians  and  Trereans,  from  the 
northern  shores  of  the  Euxine.  These  barbarians,  after 
occupying  Sardis  the  Lydian  capital,  destroyed  the 
city  of  j\Iagnesia  on  the  Maeander,  the  metropolis  of 
a  flourishing  Ionian  state,  and  rival  in  power  to 
Ephesus.  Archilochus  ^,  in  a  still  extant  passage, 
commiserates  this  calamity  of  the  Magnesians.  Cal- 
linus  ^  is  also  cited  as  acquainted  with  the  destruc- 
tion of  their  city  ;  but  it  seems  he  had  in  another 
place  mentioned  it  as  still  in  prosperous  condition."* 
Hence  it  was  argued  that  Callinus,  as  having  been 
acquainted  with  the  earlier,  while  Archilochus  alludes 
but  to  the  latter  state  of  the  unfortunate  community, 
was  the  older  poet  of  the  two.  The  fallacy  of  this 
reasoning  is  sufficiently  apparent.  That  either  poet 
should  have  mentioned  the  concerns  of  this  particu- 
lar city  must  be  considered  as  in  itself  but  an  acci- 
dental circumstance  ;  nor,  certainly,  were  such  notices 
likely  to  be  as  frequent  with  Archilochus  of  Paros  as 
with  Callinus  of  Ephesus.  Any  extraordinary  disaster 
befalling  a  distinguished  Hellenic  city,  such  as  its 
total  destruction  by  invading  barbarians,  might  very 
naturally  supply  matter  of  allusion  even  to  popular 
poets    of  a  distant  part    of  the    confederacy.     But 

1  Strab.  XIV.  p.  647. ;    Clem.  Alex.  Str.  p.  333. ;   conf.  Clint.  Fast, 
Hell,  ad  an.  712  b.c.  ;  Bach,  Callin.  p.  6. 

2  Lieb.  frg.  29. ;  conf.  nott.  ad  loo. 

^  Ap.  Athen.  xii.  p.  525.  c.  ■*  Strab.  et  Clem.  sup.  cit. 


Ch.  III.  §2.  CALLINUS.       700  B.C.  133 

it  is  far  less  likely  that  the  ordinary  condition 
or  prospects  of  Magnesia  should  have  been  cele- 
brated by  a  poet  of  Paros  or  Thasos,  than  by  one  of 
Ephesus,  the  immediate  neighbour  and  rival  of  the 
same  Magnesia.  But  in  fact,  the  terms  in  which 
Archilochus  mentions  the  calamity  of  Magnesia  as  an 
event  of  recent  occurrence,  plainly  though  indirectly 
imply  that  he  had  also  known  the  city  in  its  previous 
flourishing  condition.  All,  therefore,  that  can  be  ga- 
thered from  the  above  data  is  that  the  two  poets  were 
contemporaneous  with  the  destruction  of  Magnesia. 

Their  common  epoch  still  remains  doubtful,  owing 
to  the  uncertain  chronology  of  that  event  and  of 
others  connected  with  it.  The  inroads  of  those 
Scythian  tribes  into  Asia  Minor  are  described  as  oc- 
curring at  various  intervals,  from  before  the  Olympic 
era  (776  B.C.)  down  to  the  age  of  Halyattes  father 
of  Croesus  (617  B.C.);  and  the  dates  of  their  prin- 
cipal ravages  are  but  imperfectly  defined.^  It  is 
fortunate  therefore  that  we  possess,  in  respect  to 
Archilochus,  a  more  solid  basis  of  calculation,  in 
the  part  taken  by  him  in  the  colonisation  of  Thasos 

'  See  Clint.  Fast.  Hell.  vol.  i.  ad  an.  712  b.c,  678  b.c,  635  b.  c, 
617  B.C.  The  leading  chronological  pivots  are  here  the  reigns  of  the 
kings  of  Lydia,  as  given  by  Herodotus  (ap.  Clint,  locc.  citt.). 

Gyges  succeeds  Candaules  -  -     716  b.c. 

and  reigns       -  -       38 


Ardys  succeeds 

- 

-     678 

and  reigns 

- 

-       49 

Sadyattes  succeeds 

- 

-     629 

and  reigns 

- 

12 

Halyattes  succeeds 

- 

-     617 

The  destruction  of  Magnesia,  in  the  only  specific  notice  extant  on  the 
subject  (Plin.  xxxv.  viii.  (xxix.),  conf.  vii.  xxxviii.  (xxxix.),)  is  placed  in 
the  reign  of  Candaules  ;  but  the  passage  is  of  an  apocryphal  character. 

K  3 


134  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  III. 

from  his  native  island  of  Paros.  The  lowest  date 
assi;2:ned  to  this  event  is  708  B.C.  ^  Assumino;  him  to 
have  been  then  a  youth  of  twenty,  his  birth  would  fall 
about  728  B.C.,  during  the  reign  of  Candaules  king  of 
Lydia,  who  was  murdered  byGyges  in  716  b.c.^  He- 
rodotus^ accordingly,  describes  Archilochus  as  con- 
temporary  with  the  death  of  Candaules.  These  data 
tend  to  confirm  the  otherwise  not  very  trustworthy 
notice  of  Pliny  \  which  places  the  destruction  of 
Magnesia  by  the  Trereans  in  the  reign  of  Candaules. 
If  therefore  the  epoch  or  acme  of  Archilochus  be  fixed 
-  about  or  soon  after  700  B.C.,  Callinus  may  upon  the 
same  grounds  be  considered  as  coeval  with,  or  at  the 
most  as  an  elder  contemporary  of,  the  Parian  poet. 
This  precedence  we  have,  in  so  far  at  least  as  regards 
the  order  of  biographical  arrangement,  here  been  con- 
tented to  award  him,  in  deference  however  rather  to 
the  popular  opinion  than  to  the  weight  of  the  evidence 
on  which  it  rests. '^ 
Character,  3.  That  Callinus  was  a  native  of  Ephesus  is  unani- 
tlmi^'or'^  mously  agreed,  but  of  his  birth,  parentage,  or  his- 
caiiinus.  tory,  no  details  have  been  transmitted.  His  claims 
to  the  honour  of  "  inventor  "  of  the  elegy  have  been 
examined  in  another  place.*"  He  is,  at  least,  justly 
entitled  to  compete  with  Archilochus  for  the  credit 
of  having  been  the  first  poet  of  ascertained  date  by 
whom  the  elegiac  order  of  composition  was  culti- 
vated. His  remains,  which  are  exclusively  in  ele- 
giac measure,  comprise  from  twenty  to  thirty  lines  of 
appeal  to  the  martial  or  political  feelings  of  his  coun- 

^  Clint.  Fast.  Hell,  ad  an. ;  Lieb.  Fragm,  Archil,  p.  5.  sqq. 

'  Clint.  Fast.  Hell.  vol.  i.  p.  170. 

3  I.  xii. ;  conf.  Lieb.  op.  cit.  p.  8.  and  frg.  2.  *  xxxv.  viil.  (xxix.) 

^  Of  a  somewhat  apocryphal  recognition  by  Aristotle  of  the  superior 
antiquity  of  Callinus,  see  Bode,  Gesch.  der  Hell.  Dichtk,  vol.  ii.  pt.  ii. 
p.  139.  sq.  •'  Supra,  p.  16.  sqq.,  20.  sq. 


Ch.III.  §3.  CALLINUS.       700  B.C.  135 

trymen.     They  bespeak  a  man  of  a  proud  spirit  and 
ardent  patriotism,  flourishing  at  a  period  when  such 
qualities   were    less    in    the    ascendant    among    his 
Ephesian  fellow-citizens  than  in  his  own  bosom,  or 
than  was  required  by  the  political  emergencies  of  the 
times.     Deeply  affected  by  the  dangers  with  which 
his  native  republic  was  threatened  in  the  advance 
of    the   barbaric   invaders,    to   whose    arms   several 
neighbouring  states  had   already  fallen  victims,    he 
reproaches  the  Ephesians,  in  a  still  extant  ode  ^,  with 
their  sluggish  apathy  to  the  war  which  raged  around 
them,  draws  a  lively  picture  of  the  impending  calami- 
ties, and  exhorts  them  to  buckle  on  their  armour,  and 
prepare  for  a  valiant  defence  of  their  altars  and  homes. 
The  scanty  remnants  of  these  patriotic  addresses  af- 
ford a  no  less  favourable  opinion  of  his  poetical  taste 
than  of  his  personal  character.     Their  style  is  concise 
and  energetic,  in  good  keeping  with  the  tone  of  ear- 
nest remonstrance  and  spirited  martial  exhortation 
by   which  they   are  animated.     If  however  we  may 
judge  from  the  rarity  of  the  extant  appeals  to  his 
text,  and  from  the  absence  of  laudatory  comments  on 
the  passages  cited,  Callinus  would  not  appear  to  have 
enjoyed  any  high  reputation  among  the  antients  on 
the  ground  of  his  purely  poetical  attributes.     He  is 
quoted  rather  for  the  antiquity  of  his  historical  testi- 
mony, and  as  the  accredited  inventor  of  the  elegy, 
than    from  any  inherent   excellence  in  the  passages 
adduced.    These  passages  still  possess  a  deep  interest, 
from  the  light  which  they  reflect,  in  their  combination 
with   other   supplementary   notices    by    Archilochus 
and  later  authorities,  on  the  political  state  of  the 
Ionian    Greeks   at    this   epoch.     The   martial   spirit 

K    4 


13fi  BIOGRAPHY    OF    LYRIC    POETS.  Booit  III- 

which  animated  their  ancestors  of  the  heroic  age, 
now  appears  relaxed,  but  not  extinguished,  by  the 
influence  of  wealth  and  civilisation.  "  How  long," 
exclaims  their  poetical  monitor,  "  while  dangers 
"  thicken  around  you,  will  ye  repose  thoughtless  and 
"  unconcerned  in  the  lap  of  social  enjoyment,  equally 
*'  free  from  alarm  at  the  advance  of  the  foe,  and  from 
*'  shame  for  your  backwardness  to  face  him  in  the 
"  held  !  "  1 

CO  vsoi ;  ouo'  al^z7(rS'  a.[j.^i7r?pi%Tiovag, 

TiCr^ai'  arap  ttoXs/xo^  yoiav  OLirarrav  £p^='.    •    .    . 

The  actual  approach  of  hostile  aggression  suf- 
ficed, however,  to  awaken  their  patriotic  energies, 
as  evinced  by  their  subsequent  successful  resistance 
to  the  barbarian  invader,  and  by  his  ultimate  ex- 
pulsion from  the  states  of  the  Hellenic  confederacy. 
That  the  military  genius  of  the  race,  though  apt  to 
slumber,  was  far  from  extinct,  appears  also  from  the 
extant  notices  of  the  relations  between  the  colonies 
themselves,  and  of  the  fierce  wars  waged  with  each 
other,  as  well  as  against  their  Lydian  neighbours : 
wars  involving  the  destruction  of  some  of  the  fairest 
and  most  flourishing  Greek  cities  of  Asia. 

The  only  work  of  Callinus  cited  under  a  specific 
title  is  an  address  to  Jupiter^,  propitiating  his  favour 
towards  the  "  Smyrn^ans."  By  this  term  as  the  inter- 
preters inform  us,  with  what  reason  may  be  a  ques- 
tion, the  poet  characterises  his  own  fellow-citizens ; 
Ephesus  having,  it  is  said,  formerly  been  called  Smyrna. 
His  compositions  seem  to  have  been  replete  with  allu- 
sions  to    interesting    points    of  native    history    and 

^  Frg.  I.  '    Bach  ad  I'rg.  iv.  ;  Strab.  ap.  eund. 


Ch.  III.  §3.  CALLINUS.       700  B.C.  137 

tradition.  He  traced  certain  early  settlements  in  the 
Troad  to  Crete  ^,  and  recorded  the  adventures  of  some 
of  the  Greek  heroes  who  remained  in  Asia  after  the 
destruction  of  Troy,  especially  the  wanderings  and 
death  of  Calchas'^,  and  the  subsequent  establishment 
of  the  followers  of  that  prophet  in  the  interior  of  the 
peninsula.  He  is  also  cited  by  Pausanias,  in  a  passage 
of  somewhat  uncertain  reading,  as  having  ascribed 
the  Cyclic  Thebais  to  Homer.^  The  internal  evidence 
even  of  the  few  preserved  remains  of  his  odes  shows 
him  to  have  been  intimately  acquainted  with  Homer's 
genuine  works.  Several  of  his  pithiest  moral  or  poli- 
tical reflexions  are,  in  fact,  little  more  than  transcripts 
or  paraphrases  of  corresponding  passages  of  the  Iliad 
or  Odyssey.^ 

The  martial  sentiments,  images,  and  tone  of  ex- 
pression, in  the  bulkiest  of  the  few  extant  passages 
of  this  poet,  find  so  near  a  counterpart  in  the  far 
more  copious  remains  of  his  younger  contemporary 
Tyrta3us,  as  to  afford  colour  at  least  to  the  suspicion 
of  a  distinguished  modern  critic^,  that  this  text  may 
be  an  extract   from    Tyrtasus,   erroneously  ascribed 

^  Fi'g.  VI.  2  Yrg.  vri. 

'  Pausan.  ix.  ix.  3.  Of  the  probability  that  the  author  here  alluded 
to  was  the  antient  Callinus,  see  Welck.  Ep.  C.  p.  198.  sqq. ;  conf. 
Marcksch.  Fragm.  Hesiod.  p.  149. 

*  Frg.  I.  12.  20.,  conf.  II.  vi,  488.  sq.,  OJ.  xi.  556.  ;  frg.  iv.,  conf. 
II.  I.  40. 

*  Thiersch,  Act.  Philol.  Monac.  vol.  iii.  p.  576.  Thiersch's  proposal 
however,  it  must  be  observed,  comes  with  but  a  bad  grace  from  a  critic 
who  elsewhere  (op.  cit.  p.  642.  sqq.),  on  account  of  imputed  discre- 
pancies of  style  or  allusion,  pronounces  the  whole  collection  which  passed 
current  under  the  name  "  Tyrtseus"  (as  the  same  critic  and  the  school 
to  which  he  belongs  have  also  pronounced  the  works  of  Homer,  Hesiod, 
and  in  fact  every  Greek  poet  of  this  period)  to  be  a  mere  cento  of 
fragments  by  many  different  authors.  To  talk,  under  these  circum- 
stances, of  assigning  to  "Tyrtfeus"  by  preferable  right,  on  grounds  of 
internal  evidence,  any  particular  passage  usually  imputed  to  Callinus, 
seems  altogether  nugatory. 


138  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  IH. 

to  Callinus,  either  by  the  original  compiler  of  the 
antient  Florilegium^  where  alone  the  fragment  is 
preserved,  or  by  his  transcribers.  In  the  absence 
however  of  all  documentary  evidence  in  favour  of 
this  conjecture,  the  safer  alternative  must  be,  to  as- 
sume that  TyrtBBus  has  borrowed  from  or  imitated  his 
Ephesian  predecessor.  In  subjects  indeed  of  this 
nature,  marked  coincidences  could  hardly  fail  spon- 
taneously to  arise  in  the  works  of  different  poets ; 
and  there  is  reason  to  believe,  from  this  and  other 
examples,  that  in  the  elegiac,  as  in  the  old  epic  or 
heroic  school,  many  popular  images  or  phrases  had 
passed  into  a  sort  of  commonplace,  or  public  property, 
among  the  successive  professors  of  the  martial  or 
political  school  of  elegiac  composition. 


ARCHILOCHUS.     728— 660  B.C. 

Archiio-  4.  The  life,  works,  and  character  of  Archilochus^ 

supply  one  of  the  most  remarkable  chapters  in  the 
history  not  only  of  Grecian  literature,  but  of  human 
nature.  To  no  poet  of  classical  antiquity,  with  the 
single  exception  of  Homer,  has  so  high  a  celebrity 
been  so  unanimously  or  enthusiastically  awarded. 
In  the  familiar  allusions  of  the  leading  native  critics 

1  Stob.  Fl.  1,1.  six.  Bernhardy  (Grundr.  der  Hell.  Lit.  vol.  ii.  p.  330.), 
without  subscribing  to  Thiersch's  views,  leans  to  the  opinion  previously 
hazarded  by  Valckenaer,  that  the  whole  of  this  passage  of  "  Callinus"  is 
the  forgery  of  a  later  period.  He  adduces,  among  other  equally  pointless 
arguments  in  favour  of  this  view,  the  occurrence  of  the  phrase  oAiyos  koX 
fxeyas,  in  the  antithetical  sense  of  "great  and  small;"  of  which  he  says 
there  is  no  example  in  any  author  prior  to  Theocritus.  He  has  over- 
looked both  Homer  and  Hesiod.     Od,  x.  94.  alibi ;  Hes.  0pp.  et  D.  641. 

*  Liebel,  Archilochi  Keliquiae  ;  Gaisf.  Poett.  minn.  vol.  iii.  ed.  Lips, 
p.  85. ;  Bergk,  Poet.  lyrr.  p.  467. ;  Schneidewin,  Delect.  Poes.  Gr.  pt.  ii. 
p.  171.  The  fragments  ai'e  here  quoted  according  to  the  arrangement  of 
Liebel,  unless  where  another  collection  is  specified. 


Ch.  III.  §4.  ARCHILOCHUS.       728— 660  B.  C.  139 

to  the  standard  classical  authors,  Homer  and  Archi- 
lochus  are  set  apart  ^  as  a  duumvirate  of  poets,  to 
be  compared  with  whom  the  world  never  saw,  and 
never  again  will  see,  a  third  ;  as  constituting,  each  in 
his  proper  sphere,  a  distinct  standard  of  excellence, 
far  removed  above  the  reach  of  competition  in  any- 
other  quarter ;  and  tested  by  which  standard  the 
beauties  of  all  others  are  as  the  insipidity  of  water 
compared  with  the  flavour  of  wine.-  In  their  antient 
busts  accordingly,  the  efligies  of  the  two  poets  appear 
combined  in  the  form  of  Janus  or  double  Hermes,  as 
the  joint  eponymi  or  Dioscuri  of  Greek  poetical  litera- 
ture ^ ;  and  in  the  same  spirit  of  common  veneration, 
their  natal  feast  was  celebrated  on  the  same  day  and 
with  joint  honours.^ 

The  great  Alexandrian  critic  Aristophanes^  con- 
sidered the  compositions  of  Archilochus  so  near  per- 
fection, that  when  consulted  which  was  the  best,  his 
answer  was  simply,  "the  longest."  Longinus*"  speaks 
with  rapture  of  the  torrent  of  his  divine  inspiration, 
constraining  us  to  admire  even  the  blemishes  which 
it  bore  along  with  it  in  its  impetuous  course.  Among 
the  Romans  he  was  equally  esteemed.  Respectable 
critics  of  both  nations  have  gone  the  length  of  assign- 
ing him  perhaps  even  a  superiority  of  natural  genius 
to  the  poet  of  the  Iliad,  inferior  as  he  may  have 
shown  himself  in  his  mode  of  exercising  his  powers. 
In  an  epigram^  ascribed  to  the  emperor  Hadrian,  it 
is  said  to  have  been  by  the  special  favour  of  the 

*  Velleius  Paterc.  i.  5, ;  Dio  Chrysost.  Orat.  xxxiii.  vol.  n.  p.  5.  sq. 
Reisk. ;  Longin.  de  Subl.  xxxiii.  5.  ;  Cic.  Orator,  i. 

-  Antipater  in  Epigr.  ap.  Lieb.  p.  xiii. ;  Antliol.  Pal.  xi.  20. 

^  Viscouti,  Iconogr.  Gr.  vol.  i.  p.  62. ;  Mus.  P.  Clem.  vol.  vi.  pi.  20. 

*  Antip.  in  Anth.  Pal.  xi.  20. ;  couf.  Diog.  Laert.  vit.  Heraclid,  87. 

*  Ap.  Cic.  Ep.  ad  Att.  xvi.  xi.  '^  De  Subl.  loc.  sup.  cit. 
^  Ap.  Lieb.  p.  xiv. ;  Anth.  Pal.  vix.  674. 


140  BIOGRAPHY    OF    LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

Muses  to  Homer,  that  the  efforts  of  Archilochus  were 
conlined  to  the  less  noble  branches  of  poetical  art. 
Plato  ^  pronounces  him  the  wisest  of  poets.  By  other 
philosophical  critics  ^  he  is  designated  the  breath  and 
soul,  Homer  the  voice,  of  Wisdom.  Archilochus  is 
also  styled  the  most  beautiful  of  poets  ^,  with  reference 
more  immediately  to  the  high  polish  of  his  style.  The 
parallel  between  his  celebrity  and  that  of  his  great 
epic  predecessor  extends  to  the  mythical  details  of 
their  history.  The  Delphic  oracle  foretold*  to  the 
father  of  Archilochus  that  a  son  would  be  born  to 
him  "  immortal  among  men  in  the  glory  of  his  song." 
The  author  of  his  death  was  denounced  ^  in  the  same 
sanctuary,  as  guilty  of  sacrilege  in  destroying  the 
favourite  servant  of  Apollo.  Hence  he  is  further 
described  as  surpassing  even  Homer  in  the  lustre  of 
his  destiny,  in  having  been  not  only  at  his  birth,  but 
in  his  death,  an  object  of  engrossing  interest  to  the 
gods  themselves.^  His  works  remained,  like  the  Iliad 
and  Odyssey,  a  common  fountain  head  of  poetical 
excellence,  whence  the  greatest  of  his  successors  were 
not  ashamed  largely  to  draw,  interweaving  whole 
verses  and  passages  with  their  own  text."  His  poems 
also  supplied,  after  those  of  Homer,  the  favourite  sub- 
ject of  commentary  to  the  greatest  critics.^  His  cele- 
brity is  further  attested  by  numerous  epigrams,  com- 
menting on  the  excellence  of  his  genius,  and  the 
more  striking  features  of  his  character  and  history.^ 

»  De  Republ.  p. 365  c.        ^  phUostr.  vit.  Soph.  p.  620.  ed.  Lips.  1709. 

*  Synes.  Encom.  Calv.  p.  75.  ed  Petav. 

*  Euseb.  Pra?p.  Ev.  ed.  1668,  p.  227. ;  Steph.  Byz.  v.  edaa-es. 

^  Heraclid,  Polit.  viii. ;  Plut.  De  Ser.  Num.  Vind.  p.  560. ;  Dio  Chrys. 
vol.  n.  p.  5.  Reisk. ;  Aristid.  Oratt.  vol.  ii.  p.  296.  ed.  Jebb. 

^  Dio  Chrys.  loc.  sup.  cit.  "  Conf.  Lieb.  p.  21.  sqq. 

*  Aristavchus,  Apollonius  Rhod.,  Heraclides  Ponticus,  Aristophanes, 
ap.  Lieb.  p.  23. 

^  Ap.  Lieb.  p.  xi.  sqq. 


Ch.  III.  §4.       ARCHILOCHUS.       728— 660  B.C.  141 

On  comparing  however  this  proud  array  of  testi- 
monials with  the  data  on  which  they  are  founded,  one 
cannot  fail  to  be  struck  on  first  view  by  the  contrast, 
and  feels  at  a  loss  to  discover  any  sufiicient  title  to 
so  brilliant  an  award  of  renown.  Scanty  as  are  the 
preserved  remains  of  Archilochus,  they  yet  suffice, 
with  the  aid  of  collateral  notices,  to  afford  a  fair  cri- 
terion of  the  general  character  of  his  muse.  No  trace 
can  be  discerned  of  any  composition  approaching  to 
what  is  commonly  considered  the  higher  standard  of 
poetical  art ;  none  distinguished  by  vastness  of  design 
or  grandeur  of  execution  ;  no  deep  tone  of  tragic  pa- 
thos ;  no  lofty  strain  of  martial  or  patriotic  enthusiasm. 
The  property  to  Avhich  attention  is  chiefly  directed 
by  his  commentators,  as  the  primary  basis  of  his  fame, 
is  the  skill  with  which  he  employed  his  favourite 
iambic  measure,  in  what  was  held  to  be  its  original 
destination,  mordacious  satire  and  scurrilous  pas- 
quinade. His  most  celebrated  productions  are  ad- 
mitted to  have  been  inspired  and  pervaded  by  a 
fierce  spirit  of  revenge  ;  a  passion  hateful  in  itself  at 
best,  and  in  his  case  devoid  of  claim  to  even  such 
amount  of  dignity  as  it  may  occasionally  derive  from 
the  causes  which  call  it  forth.  With  Archilochus, 
vindictive  wrath  originated  in  ungenerous  or  dis- 
creditable motives,  was  directed  against  unprotected 
objects,  and  exhibited  in  unmanly  or  brutal  excess. 
How  then,  it  may  be  asked,  could  even  the  most 
unlimited  command  of  the  secondary  resources  of  his 
art  have  obtained  him,  in  preference  to  ^schylus, 
Pindar,  or  Sophocles,  a  seat  on  the  highest  pinnacle 
of  Parnassus  by  the  side  of  Homer  ?  In  order  to 
arrive  at  any  effectual  solution  of  the  apparent 
enigma  involved  in  this  question,  it  will  be  proper 
to  have  distinctly  before  us  the  leading  facts  of  the 


142  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  III. 

poet's  history,  which  possess  the  peculiar  attraction 
of  being,  with  scarcely  an  exception,  either  transmitted 
by  himself  or  confirmed  by  his  incidental  allusions. 
The  chronological  details  of  his  biography  have  been 
disposed  of  ^  in  treating  of  Callinus,  and  need  not  here 
be  recapitulated. 
His  birth,  5.  The  celebrated  painter  Polygnotus  of  Thasos, 
character,  hi  a  picturc  representing  the  descent  of  Ulysses  to 
Hades,  painted  on  a  wall  of  the  great  saloon  of  the 
Delphic  sanctuary,  introduced,  among  the  passengers 
in  the  bark  of  Charon,  Tellis  of  Paros  and  his  sister 
Cleoboea,  the  great-grandfather  and  great-grand-aunt 
of  Archilochus.-  Cleoboea  was  portrayed  as  a  young 
virgin  with  a  sacred  chest  on  her  lap,  allusive  to  the 
rites  of  Ceres,  reported  to  have  been  first  introduced 
by  her  from  Paros  into  Thasos,  in  which  latter  island 
Archilochus  settled  as  a  colonist  and  afterwards 
resided.  This  would  imply,  either  that  Polygnotus 
believed  in  the  settlement  of  a  Parian  colony  in 
Thasos,  under  the  auspices  of  the  ancestors  of  Archi- 
lochus, prior  to  that  led  hither  by  the  poet  himself; 
or  that  Cleoboea,  as  a  matron  of  distinguished  family, 
had  been  selected  in  her  latter  days  as  the  instrument 
of  importing  the  worship  of  Ceres  into  the  new  settle- 
ment of  her  great-grand-nephew.  How  either  she  or 
her  brother  Tellis  came  to  be  allotted  by  Polygnotus 
a  place  in  the  bark  of  Charon  in  the  days  of  Ulysses, 
is  not  so  easily  explained. 

The  poet's  father's  name  was  Telesicles^  ;  his 
mother,  as  he  has  himself  been  at  pains  to  record, 
was  a  slave  named  Enipo  ^ ;  an  origin  typical  of  the 

^  Supra,  p.  131.  sq.  ;  conf.  Infra,  p.  149.  note  6. 

*  Paus.  X.  xxvli!.  3  Euseb.  Prjep.  Ev.  ed.  1688,  p.  227.  256. 

*  ^lian.  Var.  Hist.  x.  xiii. 


i 


Ch.  m.  §5.       ARCHILOCHUS.       728— 660  B.  C.  143 

combination  of  noble  and  degrading  attributes  in  his 
character.  At  an  early  age  he  was  selected  as  leader 
of  the  colony  which,  in  obedience  to  the  Delphic 
decree  \  the  Parians  (708  B.C.)  established  in  Thasos. 
No  distinct  notice  has  been  transmitted  of  the  cir- 
cumstances which  obtained  him  this  honour ;  whether 
a  previous  family  connexion  with  the  island,  the  early 
prophecy  as  to  his  future  greatness,  his  own  precocious 
indication  of  genius,  or  the  fact  also  recorded  in  tra- 
dition, that  to  his  penetration  the  Parians  were  in- 
debted for  the  knowledge  of  the  exact  spot  destined 
for  the  new  settlement  in  the  enigmatic  response  of 
the  Pythoness.  His  own  inducements  to  the  under- 
taking, poverty  and  discontent  in  his  native  island^, 
were  of  no  auspicious  nature.  A  fragment  of  his 
parting  address  to  the  land  of  his  fathers  has  been 
preserved,  and  is  in  very  characteristic  style, 

6 a  YlapoVy 
xot)  (Tvxoi  xs7ua.  xa)  QaXd(r(nov  ^iov. 

Away  with  Paros ! 
Her  figs  and  fishy  life. 

Nor  does  his  new  residence  Thasos  seem  to  have  been 
much  more  to  his  taste.  Some  of  his  bitterest  strokes 
of  satire  are  directed  against  the  inhospitable  soil 
of  that  island,  eulogised  by  more  impartial  autho- 
rities for  its  fertility  and  wealth.^  By  Archilochus 
it  is  taunted  as  "  thrice  wretched,  the  sink  of  all 
"  Hellenic  ills  *,  the  source  of  calamities  from  which 
"  no  tear  could  be  spared  even  for  the  sad  fate  of  the 
"  Magnesians^ ; "  and  its  woody  heights  are  sarcas- 

1  Euseb.  Prsep.  Ev.  p.  226.  256. ;  Steph.  B.  v.  ©ao-cros. 
^  ^lian.  V.  H.  x.  xiii. ;  Euseb.  Pr£Ep.  Ev.  p.  226. ;  conf.  Lieb.  p.  14. 
3  Plut.  de  Exil.  p.  604  c;  Theocrit.  Epigr.  viii. ;  conf.  Lieb.  p.  78. 

=*  Frg.  28. 


144  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  III. 

tically  compared  "  to  the  backbone  of  an  ass."  ^  That 
the  unprosperous  course  of  his  worldly  affairs  was 
owing,  not  so  much  to  any  real  harshness  of  destiny, 
as  to  his  own  contempt  for  the  means  of  bettering 
liis  lot,  is  vouched  for,  besides  his  own  indirect  testi- 
mony, by  both  Pindar^  and  Ovid.^  Nor  were  his 
poetical  talents  calculated  to  provide  relief  to  his  dis- 
tressed circumstances.  Literary  genius,  even  in  those 
days,  when  favourably  exercised,  was  indeed  a  source 
of  gain.  The  talents  of  the  epic  bard  in  primitive 
times  secured  him  hospitality  and  presents ;  and,  in 
the  Parian  poet's  own  age  we  find  Terpander,  Ale- 
man,  and  other  lyric  professors,  entei'tained  at  public 
expense  as  state  musicians.  But  neither  the  personal 
character  of  Archilochus,  nor  the  nature  of  his  pro- 
ductions, were  calculated,  permanently  at  least,  to 
obtain  him  a  like  advantage.  That  the  responsibility 
of  defeating  any  such  prospect  as  may  have  opened  up 
lay  at  his  own  door,  in  so  far  as  regards  Lacedsemon, 
at  that  period  the  great  mart  for  poetical  commodities, 
will  be  seen  in  the  sequel. 
Disap-  6.  To  his  other  sources  of  bitterness  of  spirit  were 

fove^and  added  those  of  disappointed  love.  He  had  been  pro- 
revenge,  mised  by  a  Parian  citizen  named  Lycambes  the  hand 
of  his  daughter  Xeobule ;  a  maiden,  as  we  learn  from 
some  of  the  poet's  own  allusions,  of  great  personal 
attractions,  and  for  whom  he  seems  to  have  enter- 
tained an  ardent  affection.  The  match,  however, 
was  broken  off,  in  the  first  instance  it  would  seem 
by  authority  of  the  father,  but  with  the  goodwill  also, 
it  is  implied,  of  the  bride  herself.  How  far  in  this, 
the  most  celebrated  adventure  either  of  his  personal 
or  poetical  history,  Archilochus  may  have  been  himself 

'  Frg.  29.         2  Pvth.  ii.  98.  sqq. ;  conf.  Schol.  ad  loc.         ^  j^jg^  523. 


I 


Ch.  III.  §6.         ARCHILOCHUS.       728— 660  B.  C  145 

in  fault,  how  far  lie  may  have  been  the  victim  of 
wanton  ill-treatment  on  the  part  of  others,  does  not 
distinctly  appear.  In  his  own  version  of  the  story 
he  naturally  represents  himself  as  the  aggrieved 
party,  and  in  a  still  remaining  passage  broadly  de- 
nounces Lycambes  as  a  perjured  man. ^  But  the  tone 
of  the  poet's  temper  and  character  renders  it  more 
than  probable  that  he  was  himself  alone  or  chiefly  to 
blame.  The  unmanly  spirit  of  revenge  with  which 
he  persecuted  the  previous  object  of  his  love,  is  in 
itself  a  virtual  justification  of  her  father  in  breaking 
off  her  engagement  to  such  a  man.  The  step,  how- 
ever, whether  justifiable  or  not,  was  pregnant  with 
fatal  consequences  to  the  whole  family,  comprising 
two  other  daughters  of  Lycambes.  All  became  the 
objects  of  the  poet's  unrelenting  hatred  and  calum- 
nious satire.  His  crudest  attacks  were  directed, 
with  characteristic  baseness,  against  Neobule  and  her 
sisters,  as  the  most  susceptible  victims.  The  unfor- 
tunate damsels,  Neobule  more  especially,  were  ac- 
cused of  the  most  abandoned  profligacy,  and  held  up 
to  public  scorn  in  lampoons  teeming  with  the  most 
offensive  details  of  their  imputed  enormities.^  The 
success  of  his  vindictive  efforts  was  complete.  Both 
Lycambes  and  Neobule,  or,  in  the  more  popular  ac- 
counts, all  three  daughters,  were  driven  to  self-de- 
struction, as  the  only  refuge  from  the  virulence  of  his 
persecution.^  So  dire  an  extreme  of  catastrophe  jus- 
tifies the  suspicion  of  exaggeration,  if  not  of  actual 
fiction,  in  the  details  of  the  story ;  although  it  is  not 

1  Frg.  89. ;  conf.  Lieb.  ibid. 

-  Frg.  5.  145.  149.  alibi;    Epigrr.  ap.  Lieb.   p.  xii.  sqq. ;    Gaisf.  ad 

fig.  XXVI. 

^  Epigr.  V.  ap.  Lieb. ;  in  Epigr.  vii.  only  two  ;  conf.  Eustath.  ad  Od. 
p.  1684. ;  Lieb.  p.  IG. 

VOL.  III.  L 


146  BIOGRArHY   OF    LYRIC    POETS.  Book  IIT. 

impossible,  as  antient  commentators  have  remarked, 
that  the  example  of  a  single  member  of  a  united  and 
affectionate  family  might,  in  such  a  case,  prove  conta- 
gious among  the  remainder.^  The  story  supplies  at 
least  a  strong  attestation  by  the  public  with  whom 
it  found  credit,  to  the  overwhelming  power  of  the 
poet's  satire.  The  adventure,  with  the  names  of  those 
concerned,  passed  in  after  ages  into  proverb  ;  and 
while  a  clever  slanderer  was  called  an  Archilochus, 
the  Lycambides  became  typical  of  all  victims  of  calum- 
nious 2)ersecution.^ 

By  some  however  of  the  poet's  modern  apologists, 
this  fatal  sensitiveness  on  the  part  of  the  unfortunate 
damsels  has  been  adduced  as  proof  that  his  imputations 
against  their  character  were  not  altogether  groundless. 
A  certain  foundation  of  fact,  it  is  urged,  is  indispen- 
sable to  the  success  of  all  satire ;  nor  could  sheer  ca- 
lumny have  driven  those  against  whom  it  was  directed 
to  so  desperate  a  refuge  from  its  assaults.  That 
this  rule,  however,  were  a  dangerous  one  is  evinced 
by  the  case  of  other  victims  of  slander,  whose  un- 
sullied innocence  is  better  ascertained  than  that  of 
the  Lycambides.  The  character  of  Socrates  would 
require,  according  to  this  doctrine,  to  be  judged 
by  the  Clouds  of  Aristophanes.  The  rule  might 
perhaps  be  reversed ;  and  it  might  with  better  reason 
be  maintained,  that  young  women  capable  of  but  a 
small  portion  of  the  crimes  with  which  the  Lycam- 
bides were  charged  by  Archilochus,  could  hardly 
have  been  so  sensitive  to  his  attacks  as  to  commit 
self-destruction  in  order  to  escape  from  them.     The 

'  So  the  Schol.  to  Herat.  Ep.  vi.  ap,  Lieb.  p.  16. 

^  Plat,  ap,  Athen.  xi.  p.  505  d.  ;  Cic.  ad  Attic,  ii.  xx. ;  Suid.  v.  'Apx'^.; 
Eustatb.  p.  16S4. ;  conf.  Lieb.  p.  40. 


i 


Ch.  nr.  §  7.      ARCHiLocnus.     728— ggo  b.c.  147 

antients  certainly  took  the  more  charitable  view  of 
the  case.  Nowhere  is  there  a  hint  of  their  having 
admitted  any  other  ground  for  the  poet's  malevolence 
than  the  failure  of  his  betrothed  to  fulfil  her  en- 
gagement ;  while  her  entire  innocence,  and  that  of 
her  sisters,  of  the  more  odious  crimes  imputed  to 
them,  is  frequently,  warmly,  and  eloquently  asserted.^ 
Strange  too,  as  the  unhappy  maidens  are  made  to 
remark  in  the  words  placed  in  their  mouths  by  one 
of  their  apologists",  that  Archilochus  should  either 
have  sought  the  hand  of  so  abandoned  a  female,  or 
should  have  found  ditficulty  in  obtaining  at  a  cheaper 
rate  those  favours  which  he  accuses  her  of  bestowing 
freely  upon  slaves  and  scavengers.  No  less  strange, 
if  indeed  the  term  can  properl}^  ^PP^J  ^^  ^^^J  trait  of 
such  a  character,  that  in  holding  up  Neobule  to  scorn 
and  contumely,  the  satirist  should  have  been  blind  to 
the  disgrace  reflected  on  Archilochus,  by  the  fact 
which  he  was  at  such  pains  to  proclaim  to  the  world, 
that  his  offers  of  honourable  connexion  had  been 
spurned  even  by  the  most  abandoned  of  her  sex. 

7.  But  the  sting  of  the  poet's  satire  was  not  con-  promis- 
fined  to  his  enemies.     He  himself  boasts  of  his  im-  paruaii™' 
partiality  in  sparing  neither  friend  nor  foe.     Accord-  of  iiis  satire, 
ingly  one  Pericles,  whom  in  his  more  placid  mood  he 
addresses  in  the  confidential  tone  of  a  favourite  com- 
panion, is  elsewhere  denounced  as  a  low  glutton  and 
parasite.^     Another,  named  Charilaits,  is  treated  in  a 
somewhat  similar  manner.*     It  must  also  be  allowed, 
that  if  he  had  no  mercy  on  others  he  was  but  little 

'  See,  especially,  the  beautiful  epigram  of  Dioscorides  in  Anthol.  Palat. 
vir.  351. ;  and  ap.  Lieb.  p.  xii. 
^  Epigr.  Dioscor.  sup.  cit. 

5  Frg.  1.  55.  126. ;  conf.  Athen.  i.  §  xiv. ;  Arlstid.  vol.  ii.  p.  293. 
*  Frg.  5-4. ;  conf.  Aristid.  loc.  cit. 

L   2 


148  mOGUAniY    of    lyric    TOETS.  Book  ill. 

iiulul'^ent  towards  himself.  All  or  most  of  his  extant 
or  recorded  allusions  to  his  own  history  are  discre- 
ditable to  his  character.  He  boasts  both  of  the  volu- 
bility and  the  venom  of  his  tongue,  pluming  himself, 
as  one  of  his  noblest  talents,  on  that  member's  power 
and  readiness  to  revenge  his  injuries.  This  disposition 
he  illustrates  by  the  burlesque,  but  to  those  fi,imiliar 
with  the  habits  of  the  animal,  happy  comparison  of 
himself  to  the  wood-cricket,  which,  "  noisy  by  nature 
"  even  when  unprovoked,  screams  the  more  shrilly 
"  when  twitted  by  the  wing."^  He  even  reproached 
himself,  in  the  same  reckless  spirit  of  candour,  with 
vices  little  less  disgraceful  than  those  laid  to  the 
charge  of  Xeobule.  "  Archilochus,"  says  one^  of  the 
many  antient  moralists  for  whose  speculations  his 
eccentricities  supplied  material,'"  was  but  a  sorry 
witness  in  his  own  cause ;  for  had  he  not  himself 
informed  us,  we  might  never  perhaps  have  known  of 
his  being  the  son  of  a  slave ;  of  his  adulteries,  and  his 
other  filthy  habits  ;  of  his  overbearing  violence,  and  his 
practice  of  promiscuously  slandering  both  friend  and 
foe ;  of  the  hatred  borne  to  him  by  his  fellow-citizens, 
or  of  his  having  cast  away  his  shield  in  the  hurry  of 
his  flight  from  the  field  of  battle."  The  passage  last 
alluded  to  is  still  extant^,  in  which  he  records  with 
great  unconcern,  or  even  self-satisfaction,  how  in  a 
combat  with  a  Thracian  enemy  he  had  "  left  his 
"  buckler  among  the  bushes ;  but  that  it  was  no 
"  matter,  the  fortunate  finder  might  rejoice  in  his 
"  prize,  for  life  was  better  than  a  shield,  and  another 
"  as  good  would  easily  be  found."  For  this  act,  so 
proverbially  discreditable  to  a  Hellenic  warrior,  or 
rather  perhaps   for  his  shameless  avowal  of  it,  the 

»  Frg.  125.  -•  Critias  ap.  iElian.  V.  II.  x.  xiii.  ^  Frg.  58. 


I 


Cil.  III.  §7.         ARCIIILOCriUS.       728— 6G0B.  C.  149 

Spartans    are   said    to  have  forbid  him  their  terri- 
tory. ^ 

This  chapter  of  his  satirical  autobiography  may, 
however,  fairly  be  taken  rather  as  proof  of  his  con- 
tempt for  public  opinion,  tlian  of  any  actual  deficiency 
of  military  conduct.  The  loss  of  a  shield  was  at  the 
worst  but  an  ordinary,  often  a  necessary,  consequence 
of  flight,  and  the  bravest  warrior  may  at  times  be 
reduced  to  trust  to  his  legs  for  his  safety.^  Few, 
however,  will  be  found  sufliciently  callous  to  the 
point  of  honour  to  boast  of  such  an  exploit.  The 
best  proof  how  common  the  occurrence  was,  is  to  be 
found  in  the  fact  that  the  two  most  illustrious  suc- 
cessors and  imitators  of  Archilochus,  Alcseus^  and 
Horace  '^j  of  whom  the  former  was  certainly  far  from 
deficient  in  martial  prowess,  were  not  only  guilty  of 
the  same  act,  but  carried  their  emulation  of  their 
Parian  prototype  the  length  of  also  emblazoning  their 
shame  in  their  verse.  Had  all  subsequent  warriors 
been  witty  and  popular  poetical  satirists,  the  number 
of  such  confessions  might  have  been  greatly  aug- 
mented. It  seems  at  least  certain  that  Archilochus 
was  extensively  engaged  in  military  adventures.  He 
calls  himself  in  a  still  extant  couplet^  a  servant  of 
^lars  as  well  as  of  the  Muses  ;  and  the  tenor  of  several 
other  passages  bespeaks  a  martial  spirit.  The  cir- 
cumstance of  his  having  died  in  battle  must  go  far 
to  make  amends  for  any  previous  self-imputed  pol- 
troonery; and  the  additional  circumstance  that  this 
fate  should  have  befallen  him,  if  the  extant  notices 
can  be  trusted,  when  nearly  seventy  years  of  age  ^, 

I  Plut.  Instit.  Lacon.  p.  239.  -  So  Plato,  de  Legg.  p.  943  e. 

*  Bergk,  Ale.  frg.  32. ;  Herodot.  v.  xcv.  *  Carm.  ii.  vii.  10. 

^  Frg.  59. ;  conf.  57.  alibi.         *  Coiif.  Lieb.  p.  11.  sq.  43.  ;  Auctt.  ibid. 


150  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  III. 

seems  in  itself  conclusive  argument  of  his  military 
prowess.  He  fell  in  a  combat  between  the  Parians 
and  the  Naxians,  by  the  hand  of  one  Callondas,  sur- 
named  Corax  or  the  Raven.  From  the  circumstance 
of  his  having  been  on  this  occasion  engaged  in  the 
Parian  service,  it  has  been  inferred,  but  with  no 
sufficient  reason,  that  he  had  quitted  Thasos  in  dis- 
gust, and  resettled  in  his  native  island.  It  Avas 
quite  natural  that  in  any  war  of  importance,  colonial 
warriors  should  appear  as  allies  of  the  parent  state. 
The  author  of  his  death,  if  the  tale  may  be  trusted, 
having  occasion  to  visit  Delphi,  was  ordered  off  the 
sacred  precinct  by  the  Pythoness,  as  an  unclean 
thing,  stained  with  the  blood  of  the  favourite  mi- 
nister of  the  Muses,  and  was  obliged  to  expiate  his 
crime  by  necromantic  rites  at  the  Tartarian  cave  of 
Cape  Tsenarus.^  It  is  time  however  to  revert  from 
the  cliaracter  of  Archilochus  as  a  man  to  his  claims 
to  celebrity  as  a  poet. 
His  genius  8.  The  fact  that  the  concurrent  voice  of  antient 
HomVrrin  cHticism  should  have  ranked  Homer  and  Archilo- 
leKind"^^^^"  c^^us  conjointly  as  the  standard  representatives  of 
their  con-  Greek  poetical  genius,  while  involving  an  apparent 
enigma,  supplies  at  the  same  time  the  best  data  for 
its  solution,  by  affording  the  clearest  insight  into 
the  sources  of  so  high,  and  on  first  view  so  little 
warranted  an  estimate  of  the  merits  of  the  Parian 
satirist. 

The  features  common  to  both  poets  are  originality 
of  conception,  deep  knowledge  of  human  nature  and 
character,  and  a  consequent  power  of  identifying 
themselves  with  the  passions,  the  prejudices,  or  the 

1  Heraclid.  Polit.  viii.  ;  Plut.  De  Ser.  Num.  Vind.  p.  560.  ;  Suid.  v. 
'Apx^A. ;  Die  Chrys.  vol.  u.  p.  5.  Reisk. ;  conf.  alios  ap.  Lieb.  p.  44.  sq. 


trast. 


Ch.  III.  §8.        ARCHILOCIIUS.       728— GGO  B.  C.  151 

sensibilities  of  their  public  ;  a  vivid  apprehension  of 
the  varied  features  of  irrational  nature,  animate  or 
material ;  with  taste  and  facility  in  the  adaptation  of 
those  features  to  the  illustrative  element  of  their  text. 
The  analogy  between  the  two  may  be  summed  up  as 
consisting  in  the  fulness  with  which  each  combined 
the  intellectual  with  the  mechanical  resources  of  his 
art,  and  the  consequent  near  approach  of  each  to 
absolute  perfection  in  the  different  branches  of  com- 
position which  the  opposite  bent  of  their  genius  led 
them  respectively  to  prefer. 

In  estimating  the  special  characteristics  by  which 
each  was  distinguished.  Homer's  enlarged  faculty 
of  poetical  combination,  being  inherent  in  his  cha- 
racter of  epic  poet  as  distinct  from  that  of  Archi- 
lochus  as  lyric  poet,  can  hardly  be  taken  into  account. 
But  apart  from  this,  Homer  ranks  obviously  far 
above  the  Parian,  in  the  essentially  superior  order 
and  quality  of  his  muse  ;  in  the  pure  and  elevated 
tone  of  his  moral  sentiment ;  in  the  genial  philanthropy 
which  glows  in  every  page  of  his  two  great  works, 
through  all  their  vicissitudes  of  subject  and  treat- 
ment; and  in  his  fine  sense  of  the  pathetic  in  all  its 
modifications,  from  the  "  soul-devouring  "  resentment 
of  the  insulted  warrior  to  the  tender  sorrows  of  the 
heart-broken  female.  The  moral  charm  of  his  poetry 
also  consists  mainly  in  adorning  what  is  generous 
and  amiable  in  conduct  and  character.  Vice  and 
crime  are  admitted  into  Homer's  groups  only  in  so 
far  as  required  to  enhance,  by  the  force  of  contrast, 
the  beauty  of  his  more  pleasing  portraits. 

In  Archilochus  these  more  amiable  attributes  were 
replaced  by  a  sterner,  gloomier,  but  no  less  pene- 
trating view  of  life  and  action.     His  power  of  ethic 

L    4 


152  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  III. 

portraiture  lay  chiefly  in  giving  breadth  and  promi- 
nence to  the  darker  shades  and  fouler  features  of 
human  character.  These  he  embodied  with  a  reality 
of  form,  a  power  of  dramatic  effect,  and  a  pungent 
vein  of  irony,  singularly  adapted,  when  combined 
with  all  the  secondary  graces  of  poetical  style,  to 
arrest  the  sympathies  of  a  Hellenic  public.  Homer's 
satire  (for  he  too  deals  freely  in  it  at  times)  is 
])layful  and  innocent,  exempt  from  morbid  gloom  or 
misanthropy  ;  that  of  Archilochus  was  poisoned  with 
deadly  malice,  keen,  bitter,  and  withering.  The 
perversity  of  his  genius  which  led  him  to  employ 
his  satirical  talents  so  largely  in  the  indulgence  of 
his  own  vindictive  passions,  also  tended,  there  can 
be  no  doubt,  greatly  to  increase  the  interest  and 
popularity  of  the  moral  and  ethic  ingredients  of  his 
compositions,  by  the  more  vivid  reality  of  effect 
imparted  to  them.  The  doctrines  he  inculcates, 
whether  in  lashing  vice  or  commending  virtue,  seemed 
thus  identified  with  his  own  inmost  thoughts  and 
feelings,  instead  of  being  delivered  in  the  usual  dry 
didactic  forms  of  abstract  precept.  Another  remark- 
able feature  in  the  wayward  mass  of  eccentricities 
which  make  up  the  genius  or  the  d£emon  of  his 
extraordinary  character,  was  the  clear  appreciation 
of  the  really  great  and  excellent  which  gleams 
through  his  own  base  preference  of  the  vicious  and 
grovelling.  Both  the  testimony  of  the  antients  and 
the  remains  of  his  works  supply  abundant  proof  that, 
if  neither  a  practiser  of  virtue  himself  nor  a  genuine 
admirer  of  its  beauty,  no  one  better  understood  it,  or 
possessed  a  more  vigorous  power  of  inculcating  it  in 
tlieory.  His  slanderous  imputations  thus  came  forth 
doubly  armed,   by  the   plausibility  with    which  his 


Ch.  in.  §8.        ARCHILOCHUS.       728— 660  B.  C.  153 

thorough  experience  of  vice  enabled  him  to  dress 
them  up,  and  by  the  apparent  zeal  for  the  cause  of 
virtue  by  which  they  were  animated. 

The  high  esteem  in  which  the  philosophical  element 
of  his  poetry  was  held  by  the  antients  is  evinced 
by  the  title  of  "  wisest  of  poets,"  conferred  on  him 
by  Plato,  the  wisest  of  Greek  philosophers.  The 
rule  of  judgement  by  reference  to  which  this  dis- 
tinction was  awarded  is  very  distinctly  laid  down 
in  a  passage  of  Dio  Chrysostom  \  which  also  con- 
trasts, in  a  lively  manner,  the  merits  of  Homer 
and  of  Archilochus  in  this  particular :  "  How  greatly 
superior  even  bitter  vituperation,  and  the  naked 
exposure  of  the  mysteries  of  vice  and  iniquity,  are 
to  those  discourses  which  tend  rather  to  the  praise 
and  admiration  of  excellence,  may  be  elucidated 
by  the  instance  of  the  two  poets  who,  among  all 
that  the  world  has  ever  produced,  stand  alone,  far 
above  the  reach  of  rivalry  or  comparison.  Homer  and 
Archilochus.  It  was  the  habit  of  the  former  to 
eulogise  everything,  even  animals  and  plants,  earth 
and  water,  arms  and  horses.  There  is  scarcely  an 
object  which  he  can  be  said  to  have  passed  over 
without  some  kind  of  commendatory  notice,  unless 
indeed  Thersites  be  excepted,  and  even  he  is  admitted 
to  be  a  '  keen  orator.'  Archilochus  took  the  opposite 
course,  of  vituperating  all  things  and  all  men  wher- 
ever opportunity  occurred,  and  first  of  all  himself; 
convinced  that  this  was  a  far  better  sort  of  discipline 
for  human  nature.  Hence  alone  of  all  men,  both  in 
his  birth  and  his  death,  he  has  been  honoured  by  the 
gods  themselves  with  special  testimonials  to  his  ex- 
cellence." 

'  Vol.  ii.  p.  5.  Reidk. 


154  BIOGRAPHY    OF    LYKIC    POETS.  Book  HI. 

The  parallel  between  the  two  poets  may  be  fur- 
ther extended  to  the  advance,  real  or  apparent, 
of  the  social  as  well  as  poetical  genius  of  each 
beyond  that  of  his  age.  In  Homer,  this  peculiarity 
is  chiefly  observable  in  the  intellectual  element  of  his 
poetry,  in  his  high  standard  of  moral  sentiment,  his 
always  lurking,  often  declared,  contempt  for  the 
extravagance  of  the  popular  superstition,  and  his 
clear  conception  of  many  varieties  of  human  cha- 
racter, the  originals  of  which  in  those  days  might 
otherwise  hardly  have  been  supposed  to  exist.  In 
Archilochus,  the  same  feature  displays  itself  in  the 
expanded  map  of  every-day  life  which  he  suddenly 
opens  up.  We  are  transplanted  at  once,  in  his  page, 
from  the  courts  and  camps  of  patriarchal  kings  to 
the  busy  thoroughfares  of  an  Ionian  republic,  and 
immersed  in  the  familiar  details  of  local  or  domestic 
interest  proper  to  a  complicated  state  of  civilisation. 
Redeeming  9.  The  anticut  critics  however,  amid  all  their  ad- 
mora'rcha-^  miratiou  for  the  great  properties  of  Archilochus, 
racter.  -^erc  neither  blind  nor  indulgent  to  his  defects.  The 
base  purposes  to  which  he  too  often  prostituted  his 
powers,  and  the  scurrility  which  disfigured  their 
exercise,  are  freely  admitted  and  severely  stigma- 
tised.^ That  these  considerations  should  in  no  in- 
stance have  interfered  with  the  unanimity  of  the 
verdict  in  favour  of  his  transcendant  poetical  ex- 
cellence, affords  perhaps  the  most  powerful  evidence 
of  the  substantial  justice  of  that  verdict.  Even  the 
victims  of  his  persecution  are  made,  in  the  popular 
epigrams  -  allusive  to  their  fate,  to  acknowledge  the 
beauty,  as  well  as  terror,  of  the  weapons  with  which 


'  Auctt.  ap.  Lieb.  p.  38.  sqq.  "  Epigr.  n.  ap.  Lieb.  p. 


Xll. 


Ch.  ni.  §9.        ARCHILOCHUS.       728— 660  B.  C.  155 

they  were  hunted  down.  It  has  also  been  remarked 
by  his  biographers  ^  as  another  singular  feature  of 
his  singularly  compounded  character,  that  his  satire, 
however  recklessly  indulged  within  the  range  of  his 
own  social  interests,  was  never  wantonly  turned 
against  the  great  and  excellent  characters  of  his  day, 
never  against  the  objects  of  national  worship,  nor,  if 
we  may  trust  his  own  assurance  ^,  against  the  dead. 
This  testimonial  to  the  piety  of  his  character  is  fully 
borne  out  by  his  extant  remains.  While  his  allusions 
to  the  gods  in  their  more  familiar  capacity,  however 
lively  or  jocund,  are  free  from  levity  or  disrespect, 
several  of  his  solemn  invocations  of  the  Deity  in  the 
higher  sense,  are  equal  or  superior  in  simple  sub- 
limity to  any  other  compositions  of  the  kind  by 
Pagan  poets.  This  is  a  characteristic  which,  in  any 
parallel  between  his  genius  and  that  of  Homer,  would 
greatly  tend  to  secure  him  the  award  of  superior 
wisdom  from  Plato  and  his  followers,  whose  chief 
cause  of  serious  complaint  against  the  epic  bard  was 
the  levity  with  which  he  treats  the  national  deities. 
The  suspicions  which  may  attach  to  the  sincerity 
of  the  Parian  poet's  moral  doctrines  can  scarcely 
apply  to  his  religious  sentiments.  The  combination 
of  morbid  but  sincere  religious  feeling  with  depraved 
habits  of  life  is  a  familiar  feature  of  human  super- 
stition in  every  age.  The  same  malignant  sonnet 
which  ruined  the  fair  fame  of  an  innocent  female 
might  invoke,  with  all  the  fervour  of  pious  enthu- 


^  Aristid.  vol.  ii.  p.  293.  Another  redeeming  feature,  wliich  ■will  be 
duly  appreciated  by  the  modern  censor  in  striking  the  balance  of  good 
and  evil  in  his  character,  is  the  absence  from  his  page  of  any  allusion 
to  those  unnatural  vices  afterwards  so  prevalent  among  his  countrymen. 

^  Frg.41. 


156 


BTOGRAniY    OF   LYRIC    POETS. 


Book  III. 


I'ersonal 
individii' 
ality  of  his 
poetry. 


siasrn,  the  aid  of  a  patron  divinity  in  giving  effect  to 
the  blow  ;  just  as  the  Calabrian  brigand  stabs  his 
victim  with  tlie  one  hand,  while  devoutly  grasping  a 
crucifix,  or  the  image  of  his  patron  saint  in  the  other. 
There  can  be  little  doubt  that  one  chief  hold  of 
Archilochus  on  the  minds  of  his  countrymen  was  the 
singularly  distinct  manner  in  which  the  eccentricity 
of  his  own  character  was  reflected  in  his  writings. 
This  has  already  been  pointed  out  as  a  source  of 
interest  peculiar  to  lyric  poetry ;  and  it  is  one  no- 
where perhaps  so  strikingly  exemplified  as  in  the 
works  of  Archilochus.  If  Homer  represent  the  ide- 
ality or  "  objectivity "  of  the  early  Greek  Muse, 
Archilochus  may  claim  to  represent  her  reality  or 
"  subjectivity."  In  Homer  the  man  is  completely 
absorbed  in  the  poet  ;  in  Archilochus  the  poet 
exists  but  in  the  man.  His  whole  existence,  in 
action  or  suiferinii:,  even  those  thouo:hts  or  deeds 
which  other  men  most  studiously  conceal,  were  em- 
blazoned by  himself  on  his  page.  The  naked  truth 
of  the  portrait  makes  amends  for  its  want  of  poetical 
dignity.  Even  Homer  or  Shakspeare  could  hardly 
have  ventured  to  present  his  public,  in  a  fictitious 
character,  mth  so  strange  a  compound  of  ethic  ano- 
malies, such  a  blending  of  capacity  for  virtue  with 
j^reference  for  vice,  of  the  highest  range  of  intellectual 
power  with  the  lowest  standard  of  moral  principle ; 
such  a  brilliant  exemplification,  in  fine,  of  the  adage, 
"  Yideo  meliora  proboque,  deteriora  sequor,"  as  was 
embodied  in  the  character  of  Archilochus.  The  at- 
tempt, if  made,  would  probably  have  been  censured 
as  far-fetched  or  unnatural.  Here  the  portrait  ap- 
pears in  as  broad  colours  of  reality  as  that  of  Nestor 
or  FalstafF. 


Ch.  rrr.  §9.      archilochus.     728— cgob.c.  157 

Modern  commentators  would  discover  another 
source  of  this  poet's  great  popularity  in  the  peculiarly- 
national  genius  of  his  muse,  and  in  the  vital  ideality 
with  Avhich  he  shadows  forth,  in  his  own  life  and  ha- 
bits, the  characteristic  defects  and  vices  of  his  Ionian 
fellow-countrymen.  To  this  view  however  few  cri- 
tical readers,  it  is  believed,  will  be  ready  to  sub- 
scribe. The  poetical  genius  of  Archilochus  is,  no 
doubt,  in  its  variety,  taste,  and  precision  essentially 
Greek.  But  his  personal  character  cannot,  in  its 
eccentricities,  be  considered  as  in  any  respect  typical 
of  that  of  his  race.  The  more  prominent  character- 
istics of  Hellenism,  especially  of  Ionian  Hellenism, 
are  a  buoyant  gaiety  of  temper  ;  a  constitutional 
indifference  to  the  evils  of  life,  combined  with  energy 
in  struggling  against  them  ;  a  large  stock  of  per- 
sonal vanity,  and  a  consequent  ambition  to  turn  every 
talent,  good  or  bad,  to  the  best  account  in  the  esti- 
mation of  the  public.  All  or  most  of  these  features 
are  reversed  in  the  case  of  Archilochus,  giving  place 
to  gloomy  discontent,  morbid  apathy,  and  reckless 
disregard  of  public  opinion.  Were  the  point  fairly 
open  to  such  subtle  speculations,  the  source  of  ethic 
interest  in  his  character  might,  perhaps,  better  be 
sought  in  the  contrast  between  its  properly  Hellenic 
side  and  that  which  reflects  the  servile,  possibly 
Asiatic  blood  of  his  mother. 

The  complete  identity  between  the  personal  and 
the  poetical  character  and  feelings  of  Archilochus,  or 
rather  the  absorption  of  the  latter  in  the  former,  is 
curiously  illustrated  by  the  neglect  or  indifference 
displayed  by  him  towards  subjects  of  history  or  fable 
not  immediately  connected  with  his  own  times  or 
sphere  of  interests.     In  the  several  hundred  extant 


158  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  III. 

passages  or  citations  of  his  text,  scarcely  three  or 
four  allusions  to  such  subjects  can  be  detected, 
among-  the  multitude  to  matters  of  local  or  present 
importance.  In  one  place  ^  he  refers,  although  it 
would  appear  in  a  purely  illustrative  or  incidental 
mode,  to  the  punishment  of  Tantalus.  The  version 
of  this  legend  followed  by  him  corresponded  with 
that  of  the  Cyclic  Nosti,  in  adding  a  superincumbent 
rock  to  the  other  burthens  or  hardships  inflicted  on 
the  famishing  voluptuary.  The  remainder  of  his 
mythological  notices  were  all  comprised,  probably,  in 
his  epinician  ode  to  Hercules.  They  described  the 
liero's  combat  with  Achelous,  first  represented  by 
Archilochus  as  a  bull,  and  the  punishment  inflicted 
on  the  centaur  Nessus.^ 
Originality  10.  lu  Originality  and  fertility  of  inventive  genius, 
of  his'^^in-'  ^  as  displayed  in  the  characteristic  forms  of  composition 
or  style  proper  to  his  own  branch  of  art,  Archi- 
lochus may  also  venture  to  compete  with  his  great 
epic  rival.  Hitherto  the  national  poetry,  in  so  far  as 
deemed  worthy  of  culture  or  preservation,  had  been 
limited  to  the  simplest  and  most  primitive  poetical 
forms;  to  the  heroic  minstrelsy  in  the  proper  sense, 
with  the  comparatively  tame,  though  pleasing,  didactic 
epos  of  Hesiod.  The  patriotic  appeals  of  Callinus, 
admitting  their  prior  date,  form  no  real  exception; 
as  little  the  occasional  attempts  at  the  comic  or 
satirical,  as  represented  by  the  Margites,  if  indeed 
here  also  a  genuine  priority  be  conceded.  Such  was 
hitherto  the  hold  of  the  more  dignified  Muse  on  the 
public  taste,  that  even  the  burlesque  only  ventured 
to  prefer  a  claim  to  popularity  under  mock-heroic 
disguise.    One  comprehensive  style  or  school  of  poetry 

1  Frg.  46.  '  Frgg.  134,  135. 


ventive 
genius, 


Ch.  III.  §  10.       ARCHILOCHUS.       728— G60  B.  C.  159 

could  thus  alone  be  said  to  exist  in  Greece  up  to  the 
close  of  the  eighth  century  B.C.,  a  style  of  a  funda- 
mentally serious  character,  and  now  in  a  state  of 
decay.  Suddenly  there  arises  a  new  Homer,  of  an 
inferior  but  in  his  own  sphere  equally  brilliant 
order  of  genius,  who  carries  at  once  to  perfection 
a  department  of  poetry,  the  vital  principle  of 
which  is  its  identity  with  the  social  and  domestic 
interests  of  a  more  advanced  and  complex  state  of 
civilisation.  All  the  elementary  styles  or  orders 
of  popular  lyric  composition  appear  to  start  forth 
at  once  from  the  genius  of  Archilochus,  like  Pal- 
las from  the  head  of  Jove,  in  the  full  vigour  of 
youth.  Although  the  antient  critics  dwell  chiefly  on 
his  satirical  pieces,  yet,  judging  botli  from  the  un- 
qualified praise  bestowed  by  them  on  his  collective 
works,  and  from  extant  specimens,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  he  excelled  in  the  plaintive  elegy,  the 
playful  epigram,  the  exciting  war-song,  the  religious 
hymn,  even  the  amorous  sonnet,  little  less  than  in 
the  biting  pasquinade  or  scurrilous  lampoon.  Speci- 
mens of  all  are  found  in  his  preserved  remains ;  and 
the  fact  that  the  bulkier  passages  in  the  collection 
are  limited  solely  or  chiefly  to  subjects  of  a  more 
agreeable  tenor,  implies,  that  such  of  his  entire  poems 
as  were  devoted  to  subjects  of  the  same  class  formed, 
with  more  discriminating  critics,  his  chief  title  to  admi- 
ration. His  treatment  of  this  variety  of  matter  seems, 
in  each  individual  requisite  of  numbers,  expression,  or 
ideal  embellishment,  to  have  approached,  as  nearly  as 
can  be  expected  from  any  eflfort  of  human  genius,  to  ab- 
solute perfection.  Quintilian  ^,  in  describing  his  empha- 
tic diction  and  vigorous  periods,  "  teeming  with  blood 

1  Inst.  Or.  X.  i.  60. 


IGO 


BIOGRAPHY    OF    LYRIC   POETS. 


Book  IIT, 


Details  of 
style  and 
imagery. 
Epithets. 
Dialect. 


Metrical 
element  of 


and  nerve,"  adds :  "  So  unexceptionable  was  his  whole 
composition,  that  whatever  deficiencies  might  be  de- 
tected were  to  be  attributed  less  to  his  own  fault  than 
to  that  of  his  materials."  Even  the  scandal  of  his  licen- 
tious sallies  was  masked  by  the  elegant  forms  which 
they  assumed.  His  language  however,  like  his  sub- 
ject, seldom  departs  widely  from  the  range  of  ordinary 
life,  being  marked  by  that  "  medium  genus  dicendi," 
so  justly  appreciated  and  praised  by  the  antients ;  that 
native  ease  and  simplicity  of  expression,  which  most 
effectually  bring  home  every  object  or  idea  to  the 
apprehension.  His  figures  are  of  the  didactic  or  para- 
bolic rather  than  the  purely  ornamental  class ;  couched 
in  the  form  of  metaphor  rather  than  direct  comparison. 
Of  similes,  in  the  technical  sense,  the  existing  passages 
of  his  works  offer  no  example.  While  less  copious  in 
his  use  of  the  conventional  or  commonplace  class  of 
epithets  than  the  ^^oets  of  the  old  epic  school,  he  does 
not  disdain  their  aid  ;  and  some  of  these  combinations 
are  so  plainly  modelled  after  Homer,  both  in  the 
phrases  employed  and  in  the  mode  of  their  application, 
as  to  prove  that  the  varied  fertility  of  his  own  genius 
was  guided  by  a  habitual  deference  to  that  of  his 
great  predecessor.^  His  dialect  is  substantially  the 
same  as  Homer's,  with  fewer  antiquated  forms,  and 
otherwise  slightly  modified,  to  suit  the  more  familiar 
tenor  of  his  own  composition. 

11.  The  inventive  powers  of  Archilochus  are  no 
less  preeminent  in  the  mere  mechanical,  than  in  the 


^  Such  are,  in  frg.  55.,  wo\v<p\oi(T$oto  0aAarro-»js;  56.,  Botjs  vr}6e,  olvov 
ipvOpSv,  KoiKwv  KctScoj/;  33.  x'^ovl  fieXaiv]]  ;  31.  rixvevTa  Kvfxara  ;  62.  iroAfTjs  a\6s, 
&c.  K.  O.  Miiller,  therefore  (Hist.  Gr.  Lit.  p.  139.),  has  greatly 
misconceived  this  as  well  as  some  other  characteristics  of  the  stjle  of 
Archilochus. 


Ch.  IIJ.  §11.       ARCHILOCHUS.       728— G60  B.  C.  IGl 

higher  ethic  or  poetical  attributes  of  his  art.  Without  hiscompo- 
giving  him  the  credit  wliich  he  enjoys  in  the  popular  "^'""" 
accounts,  as  inventor  of  all  the  spirited  forms  ^  of 
metrical  arrangement  which  first  appeared  in  his 
page,  it  results  in  some  degree  from  the  similar 
variety  of  styles  of  composition  first  brought  by  him 
into  vogue,  that  he  was  the  originator  of  many  of 
those  forms,  and  that  all  were  indebted  to  him  for 
much  of  their  early  cultivation  and  subsequent  popu- 
larity. Clear  examples  remain  in  his  works  of  the 
iambic,  trochaic,  elegiac,  dactylic,  and  anapaestic 
metres.  The  others  ascribed  to  him  by  his  commen- 
tators, but  of  wliich  few  if  any  distinct  specimens 
have  been  preserved,  are  the  choriainbic  -  and  Ionic. 
Besides  the  single  verses  of  various  length  and  cadence 
into  whicli  the  five  first-mentioned  simpler  metres 
are  arranged,  they  are  occasionally  combined  into 
those  epodes  or  short  strophes  also  said  to  be  his 
invention,  and  in  which  he  greatly  delighted.  To 
these  strophes  may  also  be  numbered  the  verses  com- 
monly entitled  Asynartete  (disjointed),  which  though 
forming  in  all  essential  respects  a  distich  or  couplet  ^, 
it  has  been  customary,  for  what  precise  reason  does 
not  appear,  to  write  in  one  continuous  line.  His 
claims  to  an  absolute  priority  of  invention  in  regard 
to  either  the  elegiac  or  iambic  measures  have  already 
been  shown  to  be  but  slender.  He  was  however, 
there  can  be  little  doubt,  the  first  to  develope  the 
full  power  of  the  iambic  trimeter,  the  most  excellent 
and  popular  variety  of  the  latter.  Nor  is  there  any 
ground  for  questioning  his  having  originated,  or  first 

^  See  Lieb.  p.  24.  sqq.  et  Auctt.  ap.  cund. 

2  But  conf.  frgg.  98.  100.  102. 

'  Hephaest.  p.  83.  Gaisf. ;  conf.  Lieb.  p.  138. 
VOL.  III.  H 


1G2  BIOGRAPHY    OF    LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

brought  into  classical  use,  many  of  the  more  properly 
lyric  modifications  of  the  iambic,  trochaic,  and  other 
metres,  and  their  combination  into  those  concise 
stanzas  or  epodes  which  are  first  found  exemplified 
in  his  poems. 

In  the  arrangement  of  his  iambic  or  trochaic 
dipodia  Archilochus  avails  himself,  though  less  freely 
than  the  Attic  poets,  of  the  familiar  expedients  of 
solution  ^  and  common  syllable  for  imparting  variety 
to  those  metres.  In  his  elegiac  measure  he  is  less 
scrupulous  than  other  contemporary  poets,  Callinus 
or  Tyrtasus,  in  the  mechanical  adaptation  of  the 
pauses  of  the  metrical  to  those  of  the  poetical  text. 
In  passages  of  a  more  energetic  or  excited  tenor  he 
even  takes  pleasure  in  disturbing  this  rigid  law  of 
propriety,  as  if  to  suit  the  genius  of  the  text  to  that 
of  the  subject. 

Although  Archilochus  can  scarcely  rank  as  a  pro- 
fessional musician,  his  inventions  even  in  that  branch 
of  art  form  part  of  his  claims  to  celebrity  as  an 
original  genius.  The  most  prominent  of  these  in- 
ventions was  that  called  Paracataloge,  a  term  of  some 
obscurity.  According  to  its  most  probable  interpre- 
tation, it  would  seem  to  indicate  a  prolongation, 
sometimes  of  the  rhythm  and  musical  accompaniment 
of  a  lyric  text  beyond  the  natural  limits  of  the 
^^Titten  words;  at  other  times  an  excess  of  the  words 
beyond  the  rhythm  ;  in  each  case,  with  the  object 
of  adding  to  the  pathos  or  impressive  efi'ect  of  the 
performance.^    He  is  also  said  to  have  first  introduced 

^  K.  O.  Miiller's  statement,  that  lie  "  did  not  admit  resolutions  of  the 
long  syllables"  (Hist.  Gr.  Lit.  p.  136.),  is  contradicted  by  almost  every 
iambic  or  trochaic  passage  of  any  length  in  the  collection. 

^  Pint,  de  M.  xxviii. ;  Aristot.  Probl.  xix.  vi. ;  Phiilis  ap.  Athen.  xiv. 
p.  636. 


Ch.III.  §11.       AUCIIILOCHUS.       72S-C60B.  C.  1G3 

a  more  accurate  rule  of  distinction  as  to  what  styles 
of  iambic  composition  should  be  sung  to  a  set  air  or 
form  of  melic  accompaniment,  what  merely  recited  to 
the  chords  of  the  lyre  in  the  style  of  the  old  epic 
minstrelsy.^ 

In  the  preserved  passages  of  his  works  there  is  no  ciassifica- 
trace  of  any  fixed  rule  for  the  allotment  of  certain  ^,'°rks. 
metres  to  the  treatment  of  certain  subjects.^  Consider- 
ing how  commonly  the  satirical  tendency  of  his  muse 
is  coupled  by  the  antient  critics  with  his  preference 
for  the  iambic  verse,  his  imputed  invention  of  which 
is  even  described  by  Horace  and  Ovid  as  a  device  for 
sharpening  the  point  of  his  satire,  symptoms  of  some 
such  observance  might  have  been  expected  in  regard 
at  least  to  his  satirical  compositions.  No  definite  line 
however  can  here  be  drawn,  although,  upon  the 
whole,  a  preference  may  be  discovered  for  the  iambic 
in  the  satirical,  for  the  trochaic  or  elegiac  in  the 
graver  passages.  The  poet  himself,  in  an  extant  pas- 
sage, alludes  to  Iambic  composition  as  the  amusement 
of  his  festive  hours. ^  Any  very  strict  rule  of  dis- 
tinction would,  indeed,  have  been  incompatible  with 
the  free  treatment  of  every  variety  of  subject  by 
such  a  genius  as  Archilochus.  While  the  emphatic 
point  of  the  iambic  cadence  might  at  times  be  adapted 
to  a  more  serious  style,  the  rapid  flow  of  the  trochaic 
might  often  be  most  favourable  to  the  outpourings  of 
virulent  invective.     This  observation  is,  in  fact,  borne 


'  Plut.  de  M.  XXVIII. 

'  The  whole  number  of  preserverl  verses  nmounts  to  upwards  of  two 
hundred  :  of  these  about  forty-five  may  be  numbered  to  the  pure  iambic 
order,  sixty  to  the  trochaic,  forty-five  to  the  elegiac,  and  fifty  to  the 
epodes.     The  most  complete  collection  is  that  of  Bergk. 

^  Frg.  ap.  Matranga,  Anecd.  Vatic,  vol.  i.  p.  216. 

M  2 


1G4  BIOGRAPHY    OF   LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

out  in  regard  to  each  measure,  both  by  antient  au- 
tliority  and  extant  examples.-^ 

Tlie  remains  of  the  trocliaic  and  elegiac  order  com- 
prise not  only  the  graver,  but  the  bulkier  specimens 
of  the  muse  of  Archilochus.  The  trochaic  passages 
are,  upon  the  whole,  the  most  vigorously  conceived 
and  expressively  worded.  Those  in  elegiac  measure 
are,  as  usual  with  its  earlier  cultivators,  chiefly  of  a 
mournful,  partly  also  of  a  martial  character.  Few 
are  marked  by  the  satirical  tone  which  predominates 
in  the  iambics.  All  the  existing  specimens  of  a  pro- 
perly scurrilous  or  indecent  tenor  are  in  the  latter 
measure.  The  epodes  are  also  for  the  most  part  of  a 
sarcastic  turn ;  where  however  the  metre  of  these 
stanzas  has  a  more  flowing  cadence,  they  seem  to 
have  been  occasionally  preferred,  like  the  Sapphics  of 
the  ^Eolian  school,  for  softer  amorous  strains,  com- 
prising, as  they  do,  the  greater  part  of  the  few  pas- 
sages of  this  more  delicate  nature.  No  notice  has 
been  transmitted  of  any  classification  of  the  works  of 
Archilochus  with  reference  to  subject  or  style,  or 
even  of  any  subdivision  of  them  into  books,  by  the 
grammarians  of  later  times.  The  orders  of  compo- 
sition incidentally  mentioned  as  cultivated  by  him 
are,  elegies,  epigrams,  "lobacchi;"  and,  more  vaguely, 
with  reference  to  measure  rather  than  subject,  iam- 
bics, trocha'ics,  epodes.^  The  only  poems  cited  under 
specific  titles  are,  an  epinician  ode  or  pnean  to  Her- 
cules, a  hymn  to  Ceres,  and  a  poem  entitled  the 
Shipwreck.  The  ode  to  Hercules  was  still  performed 
at  Olympia  in  Pindar's  time^,  as  the  standard  common 
hymn  in  honour    of  the  successful   athlete,   on    his 

*  Hermog.  de  Form.  Or.  ii.  p.  383.  ed.  Latir. ;  conf.  frg.  48.  sqq. 

^  Lieb.  p.  45. 

^  Find.  01.  IX.  1.,  conf.  Schol.  ad  loc. ;  Gaisf.  frg.  lx.  ;  Lieb.  p.  182.  sqq. 


Ch.  irr.  §  12.       ARCHILOCHUS.       7-28— G(iO  B.  C.  165 

being  crowned  victor.  It  was  distinguished  by  a 
burden  or  epode,  still  in  part  extant,  imitating  in  a 
very  happy  manner  the  sound  of  the  harp,  and  which 
enjoyed  an  extraordinary  vogue  and  popularity  in 
later  times.  The  hymn  to  Ceres  obtained  the  prize 
in  the  Parian  festival  of  that  goddess  ^,  in  honour  of 
which  victory  Archilochus  is  said  to  have  composed 
his  triumphal  pa)an  to  Hercules.  The  Shipwreck-  was 
an  elegy  on  the  death  of  a  favourite  brother-in-law, 
several  fine  passages  of  which  have  been  preserved. 

12.  Any  attempt  to  trace  the  nicer  characteristics  of  His  genius 

,  n     k        T  'I       1  •        1  '  •  L    illustrated 

the  muse  oi  Archilochus  m  his  extant  remams  must  by  his  re- 
be  a  comparatively  thankless  undertaking ;  yet  those  ™^^'^^' 
remains  afford,  in  their  very  imperfection,  a  species  of 
internal  evidence  of  the  excellence  of  his  genius.  In 
the  case  of  no  other  author  whose  entire  works  have 
perished  do  such  detached  citations  convey  a  more 
distinct  apprehension  of  the  general  tone,  or  even  of 
the  graces  of  detail,  by  which  the  integral  text  was 
distinguished.  That  Archilochus  had  deeply  studied 
the  works  and  imbibed  the  spirit  of  Homer,  is  evident 
from  the  number  of  passages  in  which  traces  of  imi- 
tation, or  even  of  plagiarism,  from  the  Iliad  and 
Odyssey  can  be  detected  ;  although  the  pirated  texts  ^ 
are  so  happily  accommodated  to  his  own  verse  as  to 
acquire  all  the  effect  of  genuine  novelty.  No  less 
conclusive  is  the  evidence  of  the  extent  to  which  he 
has,  in  his  turn,  been  studied  and  copied  by  his 
successors,  from  the  days  of  his  own  younger  con- 
temporary Thaletas"^  down  to  the   latest   posterity.^ 

'  Schol.  Aristoph.  A  v.  1762. 

2  Longin.  x.  7.;  conf.  Lieb.  frgg.  55.  60.  sqq. ;  Tzetzes,  Aliegor.  Homer. 
u\).  Matrunga,  Anecd.  Vatic,  vol.  i.  p.  216. 

^  Conf.  Lieb.  frgg.  28.  32.  38.  41,  42.  '  Plut.  de  Mus.  x. 

*  Sappho,  Anacrooii,   .LEscbylus,   Euripides;,    Aristophanes,   Tlicogui?, 

M  3 


166  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  III. 

A  large,  perhaps  tlie  larger  portion  of  his  remains 
consists  of  texts  which  had  suo-ojested  themselves 
to  the  critics  who  quote  them,  as  the  originals  of 
passages  commented  by  them  in  the  works  of  subse- 
quent authors.  Another  remarkable  feature  of  these 
fragments  is  the  number  of  occasions  on  which,  or 
of  authors  by  whom,  in  still  extant  passages  of  their 
works,  many  of  them  have  been  cited,  several  by  not 
less  than  ten  or  twelve.  Not  a  few,  it  is  evident,  had 
passed  into  proverbs,  or  become  inveterate  as  poetical 
commonplaces,  the  best  and  surest  test  of  wide-spread 
influence  in  any  author. 

Among  the  passages  deserving  of  special  comment, 
attention  may  be  directed  to  the  seven  lines  of  tro- 
chaic tetrameter  containing  an  address  to  his  own 
soul  or  heart,  and  finely  illustrating  both  the  higher 
attributes  of  his  style  and  the  spirit  of  his  morbid 
philosophy :  ^ 

avsys'  ^ucrixsvscov  8'  aXs^=u  irootr^oiXfov  evavriov 
(TTSpvoV  sv  ooxoicriv  sySf/Lov  TrXryCioj/  xaTa.(rTaSs)g 
acnpa'Xicog'  xai  [xyjts  vixcbv  apL<pa.6rjV  ayaXXso  • 
[xrj^s  r/ixvjfis)^  sv  o'lXio  xara7r£(ra)v  o^uf/so. 
uK7\a  ^apTOiclv  ts  yjxipz^  xa)  xaxo7(riv  a.a-ya.7^ot 
[XT]  T^ItjV'  ylyvcocxs  o   o'log  f>vS[xhg  avbpwxoug  £p^s<. 

My  soul,  my  soul,  by  cares  past  all  relief 
Distracted  sore,  bear  up  !  with  manly  breast, 
And  dauntless  mien,  each  fresh  assault  of  grief 
^Encountering.     By  hostile  weapons  pressed, 
Stand  firm.     Let  no  unlooked  for  triumph  move 
To  empty  exultation  ;  no  defeat 
Cast  down.     But  still  let  moderation  prove 
Of  life's  uncertain  cup  the  bitter  and  the  sweet. 

Cratinus,  alii  ap.  Lieb.  frgg.  2,  3,  4-  32.  48,  49.  58.  63.  69.  73. ;  Gaisf. 
figg.  xviii.  XXVI.  Lix.  Lxiii.  '  irg.  32. 


i 


Ch.  m.  §  12.       ARCHILOCHUS.      728— 660  B.C.  167 

A  keen  sensibility  to  the  ills  of  life  is  here  combined 
with  a  haughty  spirit  of  endurance,  and  a  determina- 
tion, as  eloquently  enforced  as  it  was  little  observed, 
to  preserve  an  equable  frame  of  mind  in  every  change 
of  destiny,  for  good  or  for  evil.  The  language,  while 
rich  and  flowing,  is  yet  marked  by  a  terseness  and  a 
tone  of  gloomy  severity  in  good  keeping  with  the 
sentiment.  The  student  of  Homer  will  at  once  re- 
cognise the  parallel,  for  there  is  here  no  trace  of 
plagiarism,  between  the  appeal  of  Arcliilochus  to  his 
own  soul  in  the  opening  lines,  and  the  similar  series 
of  images  in  the  20th  Book  of  the  Odyssey.^  This 
species  of  self-dialogue  would  seem,  from  other  pas- 
sages ■^,  to  have  been  a  no  less  favourite  mode  with 
Archilochus  of  giving  vent  to  his  own  excited  feelings 
than  with  Homer  of  dramatising  those  of  his  heroes. 
The  mingled  spirit  of  stern  endurance,  philosophic 
resignation,  and  morbid  despair,  which  dictated  these 
lines,  gives  place,  on  other  occasions,  to  a  more  reckless 
tone,  and  to  a  resolution  to  drown  sorrow  in  sensual 
enjoyments.  "  These,"  he  says,  "  will  at  least  not 
"  aggravate  the  pressure  of  an  affliction  beyond  the 
"  aid  of  tears  to  mitigate."  ^ 

In  the  following  text,  quoted  by  Aristotle,  he  re- 
pudiates the  vice  of  envy,  and  asserts  his  own  inde- 
pendence of  spirit  in  a  very  animated  strain :  * 

ob  [xoi  ru  Tuysco  rou  TroXyp/pucou  ^iXsi' 
ou6'  siXs  TTco  ^xs  ^T^og,  ouo  ctyaioixai 
SzOiv  spya'  ixsya7v7]s  6   o'jx  IpGi  rof>ot.vviOos' 
uTTOTrpoSsv  yap  s(Triv  oc^QaX^jwov  s^iou.    .    .    . 

What's  Gyges  oi-  his  gold  to  me  ! 
His  royal  state  or  rich  array  ? 

'  XX.  17.  -  Conf.  Irg.  103. ;  Aristot.  ap.  Lieb.  ad  loc. 

'  Frg.  60.  Lieb.  i  Frg.  2. 

M  4 


1G8  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  IIL 

From  envy's  taint  my  breast  is  free, 
I  covet  no  proud  tyrant's  sway. 
I  envy  not  the  gods  in  lieaven  ! 
Tlie  gods  to  nie  my  lot  have  given. 
That  lot,  for  good  or  ill,  I'll  bear. 
And  for  no  other  man's  I  care 


Ill  another  passage  he  has  borrowed,  nearly  to  the 
letter,  one  of  Homer's  most  spirited  moral  reflections 
on  the  vanity  of  human  wisdom  or  foresight,  and  the 
entire  dependance  of  man  on  the  Divine  will,  adapt- 
ing it  by  an  easy  and  elegant  transposition  of  terms 
to  his  own  favourite  style  of  measure.^  His  sense  of 
the  power,  wisdom,  and  providence  of  the  Deity  is 
finely  displayed  in  various  other  fragments,  especially 
in  that  noble  address  to  Jupiter,  where  it  is  difficult 
to  decide  whether  the  simple  grandeur  of  the  con- 
ception or  the  force  and  beauty  of  the  expression 
are  most  to  be  admired :  ^ 

W   Z?U,    TTUTSf)  Z.£U,    (TOV  [J.BV   OOpOiVOO   XfiOLTOg, 

(TV  0  %oy   STT  avSpfOTTWu  opag^ 

Jove,  father  Jove,  o'er  heaven  and  earth  who  reign'st, 

In  power  divine,  supreme,  alone  ; 
To  thee  each  dark  unrighteous  deed  of  man. 

Each  wayward  mood  of  fowl  or  brute  is  known. 

His  tact  in  apprehending  and  describing  character 
is  displayed  in  his  summary  of  the  qualifications  he 
requires  or  prefers  in  a  military  commander ;  a  pas- 
sage^ worthy  of  the  best  pages  of  Aristophanes,  or 
it  might  rather,  perhaps,  be  said  that  Aristophanes 
ofi'ers  similar  passages  worthy  of  Archilochus  ;  for 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  Attic  satirist  not  only 
borrowed  manv  of  his  humorous  conceits  from  the 

'  Frgg.  38.  47. ;  coul'.  Bergk  ad  fig.  65. 

^  Fru'.  xvH.  Gaibt'.  ;  voni'.  xv.  ""  Frg.  34. 


Ch.  HI.  §12.      ARCHILOCHUS.       728— 660  B.C.  169 

text  of  his  Parian  predecessor,  but  was  largely  in- 
debted to  it  in  the  formation  of  his  general  style.     Of 
the   properly   satirical   vein    of    composition,    Avhich 
formed  in  the  popular  estimation  the  chief  ground- 
work of  the  Parian  poet's  fame,  the  preserved  speci- 
mens, though   in   considerable   number  and    replete 
with  point  and  spirit,  are  for  the  most  part  so  short 
and  fragmentary,  as  to  supply  comparatively  slender 
criteria  for  estimating  his  full  powers  in  that  depart- 
ment.    They  suffice,  at  least,  to  show  the  copiousness 
and  power  of  the  Greek  scandalous  vocabulary  of  the 
day,  and  the  boldness  and  skill  with  which  Archi- 
lochus  turned  it  to  his  purpose.     Judging  from  the 
stock  of  specimens  transmitted   in  his  remains,  his 
collection  of  such  phraseology  must,  in  its  integrity, 
have  rivalled  even    that    of  Aristophanes.       If  not 
superior  in  number,  it  certainly  appears  to  have  sur- 
passed that  of  the  Attic  satirist  in  originality,  point, 
and   elegance,    if  indeed    such    a    term  be  here  ad- 
missible.    His  opprobrious  facts  or  images  are  more 
rarely  than  tliose  of  Aristophanes  exhibited  in  their 
naked  and  literal  grossness,   but   are   shrouded  for 
the  most  part  under  some  figurative  disguise,  in  a 
manner  often  displaying,  no  less  distinctly  than  the 
chaster  sallies  of  his  sarcastic  Muse,  the  fertility  and 
ingenuity  of  his  imaginative  faculty.     Several  of  his 
more  agreeable  pasquinades  appear  to  have  belonged 
to  that  primitive  species  of  allegory  already  employed 
by  Hesiod,  and  whicli  afterwards  formed  a  separate 
branch  of  didactic  literature,  under  the  title  of  JEsopic 
fable.     The    following   fragment    of  a   satirical  ode 
against  a  certain  Cerycides,  is  a  characteristic  though 
meagre  specimen,  both  of  his  mode  of  working  up  his 
liumorous  apologues,  and  of  his  cpodic  measure  :  ^ 

1  Fj"-.6S. 


170  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  IH. 

ipsa)  Tiv   v^7v  aivov,  (o  K.i^f/oxl^7}^ 

a^vufxsvri  (thutcL^ii]} 
TrlQrjXog  r,si  ^r^ouov  a7roxpiSs)g 

fxoOvog  av  ecr^arir^v. 
rip  8'  S.0  aKuiTrt]^  x=poa7<.ri  (rovrjVTSTO, 

TTVXVQU   S^OiKTa  VOOV.     .     .     . 

A  tale  I  have  to  tell  tliee,  O  Cerycides, 

Unwelcome  tliough  it  be. 
An  ape  once  took  a  thought  to  live  more  at  his  ease, 

Remote,  from  visits  free, 
Of  neighbour  beasts.     It  soon  hoAvever  so  fell  out, 

That  on  his  solitude, 
A  fox  that  used  to  roam  the  country  round  about, 

Untimely  did  intrude 

In  another  of  these  apologues,  afterwards  embodied 
in  the  JEsopic  collection,  the  poet  figures  himself, 
in  his  dealings  with  Lycambes,  as  a  fox  who  con- 
tracted alliance  with  an  eagle,  by  whom  he  is  be- 
trayed, but  whose  treachery  in  the  end  involves 
his  own  ruin  and  that  of  his  offspring.  -  His  elegant 
comparison  of  himself,  in  his  capacity  of  open- 
mouthed  satirist,  to  a  wood-cricket  ^  has  already 
been  noticed.  Elsewhere  he  likens  the  self- defensive 
terrors  of  his  sarcastic  Muse  to  a  hedgehog,  whose 
"  one  great  resource  "  (Iv  /Jt-sya),  rolling  itself  up  in 
its  bristles,  "  is  worth  all  the  devices  of  more  nimble 
*'  and  powerful  animals."  ^  Some  of  his  amorous  ef- 
fusions combine  the  terse  simplicity  of  his  ordinary 
style  with  an  impassioned  brilliancy  of  sentiment 
and  expression.  Even  here,  wdiere  it  were  least  to 
be  expected,  he  has  furnished  models  of  imitation  to 
the  most  distinguished  professional  votaries  of  the 
amatory  branch  of  art.     Several  of  the  most  admired 

'  On  the  (XKVTaKri  see  iufra,  Ch.  vii.  §  15. 

^  Fig.  67. ;  Fab.  ^Esop.  i.  '  Frg.  125. ;  Lucian.  ap.  Lieb.  ad  loc. 

"  Frg.  74.  ;  conf.  4S.  123.  p.  228. 


i 


Cm.  ITT.  §  13.      AllCHILOCHUS.      728— 660  B.  C.  171 

images  of  Sappho  are  copied  or  paraphrased  from 
still  extant  passages  of  Archilochus.-^  Of  his  less 
gloomy  tone  of  plaintive  composition  some  fine  ex- 
amples also  remain,  derived  apparently  from  his 
poem  on  the  Shipwreck.  The  remains  of  his  con- 
vivial songs  are  equally  distinguished  by  the  proper 
characteristics  of  such  compositions,  ease,  elegance, 
and  vivacity. 

Amonff  the  noblest  of  his  imafjes  derived  from  in- 
animate  nature,  is  his  illustration  of  the  impending- 
calamities  of  some  ill-fated  city  by  a  heavy  mass  of 
thunder  clouds  overhanging  a  ridge  of  mountains, 
while  a  storm  sweeps  across  the  surface  of  the  neigh- 
bouring sea.^  That  Archilochus  was  extensively  en- 
gaged in  nautical  as  well  as  military  adventure  is 
evinced  by  the  number  of  preserved  passages  descrip- 
tive of  each,  all  excellent  in  their  kind,  and  several  of 
them  rivalling  the  best  parallel  texts  of  the  Iliad  or 
Odyssey. 

13.  Of  all  the    disasters  to  which  the  collective  Remarks  on 
body  of  Greek  poetical  literature  has  been  exposed  in  ^^l  enth? 
its  passage  to  posterity  by  the  ravages  of  time  or  ^^''''■^^• 
barbarism,  the  loss  of  the  entire  works  of  Archilo- 
chus is  the  most  to  be  deplored.     A  familiarity  with 
poems  entitling  their  author,  alone  among  so  many 
noble  competitors,  to  rank,  by  the  unanimous  judge- 
ment of  his  native  critics,  on  the  same  level  with 
Homer,  would  in  any  case   be  essential   to  a  right 
appreciation   of  the  extent  or   power  of  Greek  ge- 
nius.    But  the  peculiarity  of  the  circumstances  under 
which,  in  this  particular  case,  the  honour  has  been 
awarded,   in  spite  it  may  be    said  rather   than    by 
favour,  of  so  many  of  the  qualifications  usually  con- 

'  Frgg.  69.  83.  Liyb. ;  xxiv.  xwi.  Gaisi'.  et  nutt.  ad  loc. 
-  FrfT.  36.  Lieb. 


172  BIOGRAPHY    OF    LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

sidered  indispensable  to  the  attainment  of  so  high  a 
distinction,  renders  the  loss  the  more  obvious  and 
the  more  irreparable. 

It  may  hardly  be  allo^vable,  considering  that  the 
same  fate  is  common  to  so  many  other  distinguished 
poets  of  this  period,  Sappho,  Alca^us,  Stesichorus, 
to  search  for  more  special  causes  of  the  calamity 
in  the  individual  instance  of  xVrchilochus.  There 
can  however  be  little  doubt,  that  in  his  case  the 
same  eccentricity  which  constituted  one  of  the  most 
valuable  attributes  of  his  genius,  and  his  chief  title 
to  superiority  of  rank  over  so  many  illustrious  rivals, 
also  formed  a  main  source  of  the  ruin  in  which  the 
fruits  of  that  genius  have  been  involved.  In  the 
early  ages  of  Christianity,  during  the  controversies 
carried  on  between  the  promoters  of  the  new  faith 
and  the  adlierents  of  the  antient  Paganism,  the  life, 
character,  and  writings  of  Archilochus  supplied  the 
former  with  some  of  their  most  formidable  weapons 
of  polemical  attack.  Passages  are  still  extant  in 
the  works  of  the  early  fathers  \  commenting  in  a 
very  lively  and  eiFective,  sometimes  almost  Archi- 
lochian  vein  of  satire,  on  "  the  purity  and  dignity  of 
a  religion  and  a  race  of  deities,  by  the  most  exalted 
of  whose  divine  organs,  one  of  the  most  reckless 
unblushing  reprobates  that  ever  existed  was  pro- 
nounced a  superhuman  being  and  the  favoured  ser- 
vant of  the  gods,  merely  because  he  possessed  in  a 
high  degree  the  faculty  of  amusing  the  worshippers 
of  those  gods  by  an  ingenious  turn  for  scurrility,  at 
the  expense  of  the  lives  and  happiness  of  his  fellow- 
citizens.  The  destroyer  of  such  a  servant  of  such 
gods,"  it  is  added,  "was  justly  excommunicated  by 

'  Origen  iidv.  Cel^.  iii.  p.  125.  eel.  Cantab.  1677;  Euseb.  Pisep.  Ev.  v. 
xxxiii.  p.  22S. 


Ch.  Iir.  §  14.       SIMONIDES    OF    AMORGOS.       693  B.  C.  173 

their  ministers  as  a  profane  and  sacrilegious  person  !" 
Such  was  the  success  of  these  taunts,  as  to  provoke 
the  Emperor  Julian  ^,  in  a  like  spirit  of  zeal  as  de- 
fender of  the  antient  fiiith,  to  proscribe  the  works  of 
the  Parian  poet,  in  so  far  as  to  interdict  their  perusal 
to  all  persons  aspiring  to  the  sacerdotal  office,  or 
otherwise  pretending  to  piety  or  sanctity  of  life  and 
character.  In  the  early  days  of  monkish  zeal  and 
barbarism,  the  law  of  proscription  which  attached  to 
the  works  of  profane  poets  generally,  was  equally 
sure  under  the  above  circumstances  to  be  enforced, 
by  the  Christian  censorsliip  of  the  day,  with  special 
rigour  against  Archilochus.  That  a  single  copy  of 
poems  exposed  to  this  two-edged  weapon  of  perse- 
cution should  have  survived,  was  hardly  to  be  ex- 
pected.- 


SIMONIDES    OF   AMOEGOS.     693  B.C. 

14.  Simonides  of  Amorgos  ^,  commonly  called  the  gimonides 
lambographer,    who    shares    with    Archilochus    the  ofAmorgo? 
honour   of   "inventing"    the   iambic   trimeter'^,   has 
pretensions  to  remote  antiquity  little  inferior,  if  not 

1  P.  300.  ed.  Lips.  1696. 

^  Alcyonius,  an  Italian  writer  of  the  fifteenth  century,  states,  on  the 
authority  of  Demetrius  Chalcondylas,  that  the  later  Byzantine  emperors, 
in  the  fervour  of  their  religious  zeal,  had  caused  to  be  destroyed  the 
poems  of  Alcnian,  Alciseus,  Sappho,  Erinna,  JNIimnermus,  Anacreon,  Me- 
nander,  and  of  other  licentious  (ii-eek  authors.  As  no  mention  occurs  of 
Archilochus,  it  may  be  presumed  that  his  works  had  been  already 
disposed  of.     (De  Exilio,  ed.  Lips.  1707,  p.  69.) 

*  Conf.  Welcker,  Simonidis  Iambi,  Rhein.  IMus.  1835,  p.  353.;  Bergk, 
Poett.  lyrr.  p.  500.;  Schneidewin,  Delect.  Poes.  Gr.  sect.  ii.  p.  196., 
Gaisford,  Poett.  minn.  ed.  Lips.  vol.  iii.  p.  209.  The  passages  are 
quoted  according  to  the  arrangement  of  Bergk,  imless  where  another 
collection  is  specified. 

*  Suid.  V.  SijuwfiSTjs.     Anon.  ap.  Welck.  op.  cit.  p.  354. 


174  BIOGRAPHY    OF    LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

equal,  to  those  of  the  Parian  poet.^  His  joint  claim 
therefore  as  inventor  may  perhaps  be  conceded,  to 
the  extent  of  his  having  selected  that  measure  con- 
temporaneously as  the  organ  of  his  satirical  humour, 
and  having  thus  contributed  to  its  establishment  as 
a  cultivated  branch  of  composition.  He  occupies, 
accordingl}^,  the  next  place  to  Archilochus  in  the 
Alexandrian  canon  of  iambic  poets. ^  The  particulars 
of  his  life  and  character  also  present,  whether  from 
accident  or  the  caprice  of  popular  tradition,  in  some 
leading  points  a  near  analogy  to  the  history  of 
Archilochus.  Like  Archilochus,  Simonides  was  the 
leader  of  a  colony  from  his  native  island  of  Samos 
to  the  smaller  one  of  Amorgos^,  from  which  he  de- 
rives his  title,  and  where  he  is  said  to  have  founded 
three  cities,  one  of  which  called  ]\linoa  he  selected 
as  his  residence.  Like  Archilochus,  he  was  of  a 
bitterly  sarcastic  disposition,  which  also  found  vent 
in  iambic  pasquinades.  Like  Archiloclms,  he  is  said 
to  have  had  a  favourite  butt  for  his  invectives,  one 
Orodoecides  *,  who  thus  stood  to  his  satirical  muse 
in  the  same  relation  as  Lycambes  to  that  of  the 
Parian  poet.  As,  however,  neither  the  cause  nor  the 
circumstances  of  the  quarrel  between  the  parties  have 
here  been  recorded,  nor  any  of  the  pieces  in  which 
Simonides  endeavoured  to  uphold  his  side  of  the 
question  have  been  preserved,  the  affair  itself  offers 
comparatively  small  matter  of  interest  to  the  student 
of  Greek  literary  history. 

The  father  of  Simonides  is  stated,  on  no  very  high 
authority,  to  have  been  named  Crineus.^     Besides  his 

1  Clem.  Alex.  Str.  i.  p.  333. ;  conf.  Clint.  Fast.  Hell.  vol.  i.  p.  177.  sqq. 

^  Procl.  Chrestom.  Gaisf.  p.  380. 

■"■  Steph.  Byz.  v.  'k^opyAs  ;  Sulci,  v.  2i/<ftfas. 

*  Lucian.  Pseiidol.  ir.  '  Suid.  v.  'Xifxwih-ns. 


Ch.  III.  §  14.       SLMONIDES    OF    AMORGOS.       G93B.C.  175 

gcntilic  title  of  Ainorgian,  the  son  also  familiarly  bears 
that  of  the  lambographer  ^,  as  well  with  reference 
to  his  style  of  composition,  as  in  contradistinction  to 
the  later  more  elegant  and  more  popular  Cean  poet 
of  the  same  name.  The  latter  again,  in  addition  to 
his  surname  of  Cean  derived  from  his  native  island, 
bears  the  distinctive  title  of  Melic  poet.  It  might 
seem,  on  first  view,  more  reasonable  to  interpret  this 
distinction  as  relating  merely  to  the  prevailing  cha- 
racter of  the  works  of  the  two  authors,  than  as  im- 
plying, in  the  literal  sense,  that  the  poems  of  the 
elder  Simonides  were  exclusively  composed  in  iambic 
measure,  those  of  his  younger  namesake  in  the  ele- 
giac or  the  properly  melic  forms  of  lyric  verse. 
The  literal  interpretation  is  however  strongly  borne 
out  by  the  fact,  that  while  numerous  passages  in 
iambic  trimeter,  besides  his  acknowledged  poem  "  On 
AVomen,"  are  quoted  under  the  name  of  Simonides 
the  lambographer,  in  no  instance  is  any  iambic  text  ^ 
possessing  a  fair  claim  to  genuine  character  distinctly 
ascribed  to  his  successor.  The  few  iambic  verses 
which  pass  indefinitely  under  the  common  name  are 
also,  with  rare  exception,  so  plainly  marked  by  the 

^  Strab.  X.  p.  487. ;  Steph.  Byz.  loc  sup.  cit. ;  Procl.  Chrest.  p.  380. 
Gaisf.  ;  conf.  Welck.  op.  cit.  p.  367. 

^  The  only  three  iambic  fragments  usually  comprised  among  the 
remains  of  Simonides  of  Ceos,  and  which,  from  internal  evidence,  could 
not  have  emanated  from  his  more  antient  namesake  of  Amorgos,  must 
on  the  same  ground  be  discarded  from  either  collection,  as  equally  in- 
compatible with  the  age  of  the  Cean  poet.  Neither  Scopas  the  sculptor, 
celebrated  in  frg.  Lxxvn.  Gaisf.  (186.  Bergk),  nor  Dionysius  the  Colo- 
phonian  painter,  in  frg.  txxx.  Gaisf.,  nor  the  Colossus  of  Rhodes,  frg. 
Lxxxv.  Gaisf.  (187.  Bergk),  could  have  been  known  to  Simonides  of  Ceos. 
All  three  passages  may,  perhaps,  be  assigned  to  some  one  of  the  younger 
Simonidce  mentioned  by  Suidas.  (Conf.  Gaisf.  Poett.  minn.  a  ol.  in.  ed. 
Lips.  p.  157.  note.)  The  collections  of  the  two  poets  have  been  con- 
founded in  the  older  editions;  the  distinction  has,  however,  been  accm'ately 
drawn  by  the  more  recent  editors,  Welcker,  Schneidewin,  and  Bergk. 


17G  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  TTF. 

proper  characteristics  of  tlie  lambograplier,  as  on 
grounds  of  internal  evidence  to  leave  no  doubt  of 
their  being  his  composition.  That  his  Avorks  were 
exclusively  limited  to  iambics  is  also  probable.^  While 
much  the  greater  part  of  the  numerous  elegiac  or 
raclic  fragments  which  pass  under  the  common  title 
are  distinctly  ascribed  byname  to  his  successor,  there 
is  not  one  similarly  allotted  to  himself;  nor,  among 
tliose  not  so  definitely  claimed  for  the  Cean  Simonides, 
are  there  any  whicli,  as  collated  with  the  ascertained 
productions  of  the  lambographer  could,  on  internal 
evidence,  be  properly  ascribed  to  the  latter  poet. 
Upon  the  whole  therefore,  in  any  distribution  of  the 
doubtful  passages,  the  safest  general  rule  must  be 
to  allot  all  the  iambic  passages  extant  under  the 
common  title  Simonides  to  the  poet  of  Amorgos,  all 
those  of  an  elegiac  or  purely  melic  character  to  his 
more  celebrated  namesake. 

With  the  above  limitation,  the  preserved  works  of 
this  author  are  ;  a  satirical  poem  or  part  of  a  poem,  of 
considerable  length,  "  On  Women  ; "  another  shorter 
one,  containing  moral  reflexions  on  the  Yanity  of 
Human  Life;  and  a  number  of  detached  passages  or 
fragments,  for  the  most  part  also  of  a  sarcastic  or 
epigrammatic  character. 
His  poem  15.  The  pocui  on  Women  ^  comprises  a  hundred 

and  twenty  lines.     Its  satire,  as  the  name  implies, 

1  In  the  list  of  Suidas  two  books  of  elegies  are  ascribed  to  him.  To 
this  testimony  however,  unsupported  by  other  better  authorities,  but 
little  weight  can  attach.  Suidas  has  here  probably,  as  in  other  parallel 
cases,  confounded  the  two  authors  with  each  other  and  with  Simmias  of 
Rhodes.  Similar  doubts  attach  to  the  "  Samian  Archaeology"  mentioned 
by  Suidas;  and  to  the  trochaic  tetrameters  alluded  to  by  the  anonymous 
grammarian  cited  in  p.  173.  But  conf.  "Welck.  op.  cit.  p.  357.  sqq.  Two 
books  of  iambics  are  mentioned  by  Athenfeus,  ii.  p.  57  d.  ;  conf,  Bekk. 
A  need.  Gr.  vol.  i.  p.  105. 

2  Frff.  6. 


on  Women. 


Ch.  III.  §  15.       SIMONIDES    OF   AMORGOS.       G93  B.  C.         177 

is  of  a  general  rather  than  a  personal  tendency.  It 
describes  the  various  characters  of  women,  as  they 
appeared  to  the  jaundiced  eye  of  the  author,  under  ten 
heads,  each  of  which  is  illustrated  by  the  correspond- 
ing properties  of  certain  animals  or  other  objects,  from 
which  the  different  kinds  of  female,  or  rather  of  wife, 
are  respectively  figured  to  have  derived  their  origin. 
These  allegorical  representatives  of  female  attribute 
and  character  are,  according  to  the  descriptive  order 
adopted  by  the  satirist:  1.  the  Hog;  2.  the  Fox; 
3.  the  Dog;  4.  Mud,  or  Clay;  5.  Sea  water;  6.  the 
Ass  ;  7.  the  Weasel;  8.  the  Blood-mare;  9.  the  Ape  ; 
10.  the  Bee. 

The  first  is  dirty,  grovelling,  and  sluttish  :  the  se- 
cond cunning,  versatile,  and  clever,  for  good  or  for 
evil :  the  third  an  incorrigible  scold,  blustering,  quar- 
relsome, and  at  the  same  time  prying  and  suspi- 
cious :  the  fourth  sluggish,  apathetic,  and  gluttonous  : 
the  fifth  wayward  and  capricious,  by  turns  pleasant 
and  sulky,  placid  and  choleric  ;  charming  when  in 
good,  insufferable  when  in  bad  humour:  the  sixth 
excellent  at  household  work  when  forced  to  apply, 
but  lazy,  obstinate,  and  incontinent  :  the  seventh 
sullen,  morose,  and  thievish,  repulsive  in  person  and 
manners :  the  eighth  the  lady  of  fashion,  despising 
housewifery,  devoted  to  dress,  the  bath,  and  per- 
fumes ;  a  beautiful  ornament  of  a  royal  or  wealthy 
establishment,  but  ruinous  to  the  husband  of  more 
humble  rank.  The  ninth  is  hideous  in  person,  sly, 
mischievous,  and  malicious.  The  tenth  alone  pos- 
sesses all  the  qualifications  of  a  good  wife,  and  is  the 
greatest  blessing  the  gods  can  bestow  on  their  fa- 
vourites among  mortals.  The  poem  closes  with  a  sort 
of  epilogue,  or  general  summary,  characterising  the 

VOL.  III.  JT 


178  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  III. 

female  sex  as,  upon  the  whole,  the  chief  bane  of  man's 
existence,  and  the  married  state  as  the  most  wretched 
of  liuman  lots, 
orisin  of  This  Avork  possesses  various  strong  claims  on  the 

pocucai  attention  of  the  student  of  early  Greek  literature. 
*'- •^'^-t  h  ^^  ^^  *'^^  ^^^y  entire  specimen  of  the  style  of  didactic 
female  sex.  allciiory  to  wliich  it  bclono-s.  It  is  also  the  first 
Pandora.  distittct  cxprcssiou  of  that  spirit  of  satire  against  the 
female  sex,  which  forms  so  characteristic  a  feature  of 
the  popular  Greek  poetry,  from  the  earliest  to  the 
latest  period.  The  allegorical  mode  in  which  the 
same  spirit  is  expressed  in  the  Hesiodic  fable  of 
Pandora,  the  first  woman,  and  authoress  of  evil  to 
the  human  race,  connects  itself  very  plainly,  in  the 
figurative  cosmogony  of  Greece,  with  the  Mosaic 
tradition  of  the  Fall  of  man.  Pandora  is  Eve.  The 
vice  and  misery  contained  in  her  box,  and  which  she 
scatters  through  the  world,  are  described  accordingly 
by  Hesiod  as  the  judgements  of  Jupiter  on  the 
human  race,  for  having  conspired  with  Prometheus 
against  his  divine  authority.  Prometheus,  Fore- 
thought or  Foreknowledge,  is  the  same  genius  of 
presumptuous  human  self-sufficiency  figured  in  the 
Mosaic  system  by  the  Serpent  and  the  Tree  of  Know- 
ledge. 

The  legend  of  Pandora,  like  others  common  to  the 
two  standard  poems  of  Hesiod,  appears  in  a  far  more 
genial  form  in  the  Works  than  in  the  Theogony.^ 
In  the  former  poem  Pandora,  as  distributrix  of  the 
contents  of  Jove's  mystical  box,  appears  as  the 
foolish  or  even  reckless  agent,  but  not  as  the  wilful 
cause,  of  ruin  to  her  descendants.  Nor  has  the  poet, 
in  the  zeal  of  his  satire,  lost  sight  of  the  sounder 

•  Works,  47.  sqq. ;  Theog.  565.  sqq. 


Ch.  III.  §  15.       SIMONIDES    OF    AMORGOS.       093  B.  C.  179 

maxim  inculcated  by  him  in  other  portions  of  his 
text,  that  "  although  a  bad  wife  is  the  worst  of  evils, 
a  good  wife  is  the  best  of  blessings:  "^  and,  among 
the  numerous  vices  of  his  mythical  type  of  female 
levity,  she  is  at  least  endowed  with  the  virtue  of 
industry,  so  precious  in  the  eyes  of  Hesiod. 

In  the  Theogony,  the  more  genial  playful  spirit  of 
the  allegory  disappears.  Pandora,  deprived  of  her 
box,  is  there  represented  in  her  own  proper  person 
as  the  genius  of  all  mischief,  and  as  the  mother  of  an 
equally  reprobate  race  of  daughters,  who  perpetuate 
unmitigated  sin  and  misery  among  the  sons  of  men. 
That  Simonides  had  "  Hesiod  "  in  view  in  working  up 
his  own  poem,  appears  both  from  the  general  tone  of 
his  allegory,  and  from  his  paraphrase,  or  almost  tran- 
script, of  standard  passages  of  the  Boeotian  poems.^ 
lie  has  conformed  to  the  Works  in  the  spirit  of 
impartiality  with  which  he  has  blended  a  certain 
ingredient  of  good  with  the  predominant  vices  of  his 
decad  of  heroines.  He  has  followed  the  Theogony 
in  the  spirit  of  malignant  exaggeration  with  which  he 
has  enlaro-ed  on  their  defects. 

These  three  poems,  especially  those  of  the  elder 
Hesiod  and  Simonides,  have  given  the  tone  to  all  the 
Greek  poetical  pasquinades  of  the  same  class  ;  and 
their  more  characteristic  passages  have  been  freely 
pirated  and  paraphrased  by  subsequent  authors. 

Another  curious  recognition  of  the  title  of  the 
Greek  fair  sex  to  the  honour  of  standard  popular 
butt  of  the  satirical  muse  of  their  ungallant  lords,  is 
to  be  found  in  the  only  extant  fragment  of  Susarion, 
the  founder  of  Grecian  comedy.     The  passage  sounds 

1  Works,  700. 

'  Frg.  VII.,  conf.  Works,  700.  sq. ;  frg.  v.,  conf.  Theog.  612. 


180  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  III. 

almost  like  an  inaugural  announcement  of  the  spirit 
that  was  to  animate  the  whole  family  of  literature  of 
which  the  author  was  the  father. 

axovsre,  Xsco*  ^oiKTapituv  7<syei  rd^s, 


jcaxov  yuvaTxsg  ! 


Hear,  O  ye  people,  these  are  the  words  of  Susarion 
Of  Tripodiscus,  Philinus's  son,  the  Megarian : 
"Woman 's  a  curse !  .  .  .  . 

Style  of  IG.  The  composition  and  style  of  the  poem  of  Si- 

on^NVo^n.  monidcs,  if  judged  by  their  proper  standard,  possess 
great  merit,  but  have  scarcely  perhaps  been  appre- 
ciated as  they  deserve.  The  antient  critics  indeed, 
although  but  few  appeals  are  extant  to  the  contents 
of  the  work,  have  shown  at  least  their  sense  of  the 
author's  talent,  by  classing  him  in  this  department  of 
art  by  the  side  of  Archilochus,  its  greatest  master. 
The  existence  of  an  abridged  paraphrase  of  the  poem 
by  Phocylides  ^  is  also  sufficient  evidence  of  the 
esteem  in  which  it  was  held.  Among  the  moderns, 
on  the  other  hand,  it  has  generally  been  treated  with 
greater  neglect,  or  judged  with  less  favour,  than  it 
deserves.  Its  satire  is  indeed  not  only  bitter,  but 
gross  even  to  scurrility  ;  and  both  plan  and  exe- 
cution are  remarkable  for  quaint  eccentricity  rather 
than  elegance.  But  the  characters  are  ingeniously 
conceived  and  cleverly  drawn  ;  and  the  illustrations, 
though  at  times  grotesque  and  coarse,  evince  fertility 
of  inventive  talent,  and  are,  in  the  author's  conception 
of  his  subject,  spirited  and  apposite.     The  language, 

1  Meinek.  Fragm.  Coram.  GrsEcc.  vol.  ii.  p.  3.  See  also  Herodotus, 
V.  83.,  for  the  same  fundamental  element  of  satire  as  pervading  the  Dorian 
or  early  Greek  comedy. 

'  Phocyl.  frg.  3.  Bergk. 


Cu.  Iir.  §  16.       SIMONIDES    OF   AMORGOS.       693  B.  C.  181 

ill  addition  to  that  primitive  simplicity  which  always 
possesses  its  own  peculiar  charm,  is  terse  and  con- 
cise, and  occasionally,  where  the  style  rises  above  its 
usual  homely  level,  becomes  even  elegant.  Among 
the  best  passages  is  the  comparison  of  the  fickle  and 
wayward  female  to  the  sea.^  The  few  lines  of  simile 
illustrative  of  the  different  phases  of  that  element 
are  worthy  of  Sophocles  or  Homer.  The  description 
of  the  fine  lady  ^,  and  that  of  the  sterling  good  and 
faithful  spouse  ^,  also  possess  great  merit ;  and  the 
latter  of  the  two  shows  that  Simonides,  like  Archilo- 
chus,  could  appreciate  virtue  as  well  as  satirise  vice. 
The  former  passage  is  subjoined,  as  a  specimen  of  the 
author's  style : 

X   our  dv  iK\j7\.r^g  i^avireisvy  outs  xorrxivou 
oipsisVj  ours  xoirpov  s^  o'lxov  j^di7\.oi  • 
o'jTS  TTpog  IttvoVj  oLtT^oT'.y^v  d7<suixsvr)y 
7^0 IT  '  dvdyxr^  8'  avoooL  TroisiTai  (pb^ov, 
XouTCti  8=  TratTTig  r^ixspr^g  oltto  cuttov 
h\g,  ak7\.0TS  rpif,  xa\  [xv^oig  aXsn^srai. 
dsi  OS  ^aiTTjV  sxTsvKTixsvr^v  ^opsi 
3a5s7ai/  dv^s[xoi(riv  icrxiaa-ixivriv. 
xa7\.ov  [xlv  ouv  SsYjfxa  toiuutt]  yvvr) 
dXkoi(Ti '  Tto  3'  s^ovTi  yiyvsrai  xaxov^ 
y)v  [xi^  Tig  -^  Tu^avvog  r^  (rxrjTTTOu^og  f^ 
o(rTig  ToiofjTQig  $uixov  ct^Xai'^sra/. 

Next  in  the  lot  a  gallant  dame  we  see. 
Sprung  from  a  mare  of  noble  pedigree. 
No  servile  work  her  spirit  proud  can  brook-; 
Her  hands  were  never  taught  to  bake  or  cook ; 
The  vapour  of  the  oven  makes  her  ill ; 
She  scorns  to  empty  slops  or  turn  the  mill. 
'  27.  sqq.  ^  57.  sqij.  3  83_  g^,^ 

M   3 


other 
■works  of 
Simonides. 


182  BIOGKAniY    OF   LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

No  household  washings  her  fair  skin  deface, 

Her  own  abkitions  are  her  chief  sohice. 

Tliree  baths  a  day,  with  bahus  and  perfumes  rare, 

Refresh  her  tender  limbs  ;  her  long  rich  hair 

Each  time  she  combs,  and  decks  with  blooming  flowers. 

No  spouse  more  fit  than  she  the  idle  hours 

Of  wealthy  lords  or  kings  to  recreate, 

And  grace  the  splendour  of  their  courtly  state. 

For  men  of  humbler  sort  no  better  guide, 

Heaven  in  its  wrath  to  ruin  can  provide. 

The  epilogue  from  v.  93.  downwards,  although  the 
style  and  general  character  bespeak  the  composition 
of  the  same  author,  appears,  in  its  present  connexion 
with  the  remainder  of  the  text,  rather  as  an  excres- 
cence than  as  an  integral  part  of  the  poem.  It  does 
little  more  than  exaggerate,  with  some  tasteless  re- 
petitions, the  former  train  of  philippic  against  the 
sex :  and  that  most  inappropriately,  immediately 
after  the  passage  admitting  and  enumerating  the  ex- 
cellences by  which  their  defects  were  counterbalanced. 
If  to  these  considerations  be  added  the  fact,  that  the 
whole  text  is  given,  in  the  compilation  of  Stob^eus  ^, 
merely  as  one  among  numerous  fragments  of,  or 
extracts  from,  a  variety  of  poems  satirising  the  cha- 
racter and  habits  of  the  female  sex,  the  suspicion 
naturally  arises  that  the  compiler  or  his  transcribers 
may  have  confounded  into  one  two  distinct  extracts 
from  the  same  author. 

The  tone  of  the  other  bulkier  remnant  of  the  muse 
of  Simonides  ^,  in  twenty-four  lines,  partakes  more  of 
morbid  melancholy  than  of  sarcasm.  The  text  of  the 
whole  discourse  is  to  be  found  in  vv.  136,  137,  of  the 
xviiith  book  of  the  Odyssey,  paraphrased  in  vv.  3-5. 
of  the  author's  own  poem,  which  is  a  commentary  on 

1  Stobaei  Flor.  lxxiii.  -  Frg.  1.  Bergk. 


Cii.III.  §16.       SIMONIDES    OF   AMORGOS.       693  B.  C.  183 

the  evils  of  human  life,  addressed  to  a  young  friend. 
The  poet  expatiates  on  the  weakness  and  helplessness 
of  man,  on  the  vanity  of  his  wisdom  or  power,  and 
on  his  dependance  on  the  arbitrary  will  of  the  gods, 
in  a  tone  of  gloomy  discontent  rather  than  pious 
resignation.  The  fairest  hopes,  or  most  brilliant 
prospects,  are  described  as  but  so  many  snares  to 
entrap  deluded  mortals  into  disaster  or  disappoint- 
ment. The  whole  sums  up  with  the  usual  moral 
of  such  a  tale :  to  beware  of  being  unduly  elated 
by  prosperity,  or  cast  down  by  adversity,  and  to 
study  rather  to  preserve  a  stoical  indifference  to  the 
concerns  of  life.  This  composition  is  marked  bj^  the 
same  homely  simplicity,  and  the  same  terseness  of 
style,  as  the  satire  on  women. ^ 

The  remaining  fragments,  of  which,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  one  of  three  lines,  none  exceed  a  single 
distich,  present  the  same  peculiarities  of  manner 
and  language  as  the  two  longer  pieces.  Here  and 
there  traces  of  ^sopic  allegory  are  observable.  The 
dialect  of  Simonides,  while  in  its  general  tone  the 
purest  poetical  Ionic  of  his  age,  presents  not  a  few 
original  and  characteristic  forms  both  of  idiom  and 
expression,  proper,  it  may  be  presumed,  to  the 
Samian  variety  of  his  native  tongue.^  His  versi- 
lication,  like  his  general  style,  is  more  remarkable 
for  simplicity  and  vigour  than  for  musical  cadence. 
Like  -3llschylus,  he  takes  pleasure  in  lines  consisting 
of  a  few  long  words  ^,  as  a  means  of  imparting 
earnestness  of  effect.  The  iambic  trimeter  appears 
in  his  text  in  the  simplest  forms,  rarely  admitting 

'  In  V.  23.  of  this  passage,  the  correction  of  Ka.Kwv  into  KaKa>v  seems 
obviously  to  be  required. 

=*  Conf.  Welck,  p.  370.  sq.  ^  Yrgg.  vi.  40.  66.  118. 

A  4 


184  BIOGRAPHY    OF   LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

even  that  legitimate  amount  of  encroachment  on 
the  elementary  principle  of  the  measure,  authorised 
by  its  other  standard  cultivators.  He  is  extremely 
sparing  in  his  solution  of  the  long  syllable  \  and 
seldom  if  ever  allows  the  short  syllable  before  mute 
and  liquid.  The  extant  verses  offer  but  a  single 
exception  -  to  this  latter  rule,  which  even  Homer 
does  not  hesitate  freely  to  transgress. 


TYRT^US.   680—660  B.C. 

Tyrtjeus.  17.  The  transition  from  the  last  two  heads  of  subject 

to  that  treated  in  the  present  section,  transports  us 
once  more  from  the  busy  thoroughfares  of  an  Ionian 
city  into  the  heart  of  a  camp  of  Homeric  warriors. 
The  remains  of  Tyrtaeus,  as  compared  with  those  of 
the  Parian  or  the  Araorgian  poet,  offer  one  among  other 
examples  that  might  be  adduced,  how  fallacious  in 
many  cases  must  be  the  evidence  derivable  from  those 
peculiarities  of  style,  subject,  or  allusion,  so  much 
pressed  by  speculative  critics  as  tests  of  the  compara- 
tive age  of  authors  or  works.  Tyrtseus,  by  reference 
to  such  criteria,  and  apart  from  the  historical  data 
which  establish  liim  as  a  younger  contemporary  of 
Archilochus,  would  naturally  be  classed  as  the  more 
antient  poet  of  the  two.  Of  those  varied  pictures 
which  the  works  of  the  latter  present  of  the  social 
condition  of  early  republican  Greece,  from  the  busi- 
ness  of  the  senate  or  forum  down  to  the  domestic 

'  But  one  example  can  be  discovered  in  the  extant  fragments,  and 
that  in  a  doubtful  reading  (frg.  15.  Bergk).  In  verses  1.  and  43.  of  the 
poem  on  women  a  synizesis  rather  than  solution  may  be  assumed,  as  in 
many  parallel  passages  of  Archilochus. 

^  Before  6v  in  v.  13.  of  frg.  i. 


Ch.  III.  §  17.  TYRTiEUS.      680— 660  B.C.  185 

squabble  or  the  debaucheries  of  the  brothel  or  beer- 
house, the  pages  of  Tyrtaeus  offer  not  a  vestige. 
With  a  uniformity  of  style  amounting  almost  to 
monotony,  they  are  exclusively  devoted  to  martial 
adventure,  exhibiting  an  absence  of  all  interest  in 
the  affairs  of  ordinary  life,  with  an  absorption  of 
the  individuality  of  the  author  in  the  enthusiasm 
for  his  subject,  scarcely  surpassed  in  the  case  of 
Homer  himself.  Nowhere,  accordingly,  is  there  any 
allusion  by  Tyrtasus  to  his  own  personal  history,  the 
accounts  of  which,  as  transmitted  in  other  quarters, 
are  of  a  somewhat  singular  or  even  marvellous 
character. 

The  most  remarkable  events  in  the  j^olitical  annals  His  popuia 
of  European  Greece,  between  the  epoch  of  the  Dorian  ^^os^^p^y- 
settlement  in  Peloponnesus  and  the  Persian  invasion, 
were  the  two  devastating  wars  waged  between  the 
leading  states  of  that  peninsula,  the  Spartans  and 
Messenians.  This  long  struggle,  extending,  with  the 
intermediate  interval,  over  nearly  a  century,  ended  in 
the  subjugation  of  the  latter  people,  and  annexation 
of  their  territory  by  the  victors  to  the  Lacedcemonian 
state.  The  first  war  terminated  in  a  treaty,  the 
conditions  of  which  were  so  oppressive  to  the  Mes- 
senians, as  to  lead  in  the  second  generation  after- 
wards to  a  renewal  of  the  contest  with  still  greater 
energy.  At  the  outset  the  fortune  of  the  war  was  now 
on  the  side  of  the  Messenians,  who,  under  the  auspices 
of  their  hero  Aristomenes,  obtained  so  decided  a  su- 
periority, as  to  induce  the  Spartans  to  have  recourse 
to  the  Delphic  oracle  for  advice  in  their  emergency. 
The  answer  of  the  Pythoness  was,  that  they  should 
apply  to  the  Athenians  for  a  leader.  A  deputation 
Avas   sent  to   Athens   accordingly.     The  Athenians, 


186  BIOGKAPIIY    OF   LYRIC    POETS.  Book  IH. 

with  a  view  of  defeating,  in  so  far  as  in  them  lay,  the 
favourable  intentions  of  the  oracle  towards  their  for- 
midable neighbours,  and  of  indulging  at  the  same 
time  their  facetious  humour,  made  choice,  as  the 
legend  bears,  of  a  lame  schoolmaster  of  the  demus  of 
Aphidna3,  hitherto  as  little  distinguished  for  mental  as 
bodily  qualities,  who  was  escorted  with  all  due  cere- 
mony to  Lacedceraon,  and,  in  punctilious  obedience  to 
the  terms  of  the  oracle,  installed  in  his  high  functions. 
The  pedagogue,  however,  was  not  long  in  asserting 
both  his  own  honour  and  the  credit  of  the  Pythoness. 
Such  was  the  wisdom  of  his  counsels,  and  so  brilliant 
the  poetical  rhetoric  by  which  he  enforced  them,  as 
speedily  to  renovate  the  drooping  courage  of  his  new 
fellow-citizens,  and  turn  the  tide  of  success  in  their 
favour.  The  hero  of  this  adventure,  and  of  Sparta 
during  the  second  Messenian  war,  was  Tyrtaeus.^ 

Nor  was  the  influence  of  their  new  political  chief 
confined  to  the  military  affairs  of  his  adopted  country- 
men. It  extended  also  to  their  domestic  politics. 
On  the  Spartan  arms  regaining  the  ascendant  in  the 
field,  the  Messenians,  by  the  desperate  measures  of 
defence  to  which  they  resorted,  aggravated  the  evils 
of  war  to  their  adversaries  by  those  of  famine  and 
civil  dissension.^  Avoiding  pitched  battles,  they 
were  content,  from  their  stronghold  Ira,  situated 
not  far  from  the  Spartan  frontier,  to  exercise  a 
systematic  brigandage,  as  well  on  the  territory  con- 
quered from  themselves  as  on  the  conterminous  parts 
of  Laconia.     Seizing    men  and  goods,  they  exacted 

^  Pausan.  iv.  xv.  sqq. ;  Justin,  rn.  v.;  Themist.  Orat.  xv.  p.  197  d.  ; 
conf.  Plat.  Legg.  p.  629  d.  ;  Lycurg.  contr.  Leocr.  §  28. ;  Philoch.  et 
Callisth.  ap.  Strab.  vni.  p.  362.  According  to  Suid.  v.  Tvfnalos,  the 
poet's  father's  name  was  Arcbimbrotus. 

^  Pausan.  iv.  xviii.  sq. ;  Aristot.  Polit.  v.  vi. 


Ch.  III.  §18.  TYKT^US.       680— 660  B.C.  187 

high  ransoms  for  their  restoration ;  and  allowing  the 
enemy  to  cultivate  the  soil,  descended  as  harvest 
approached,  and  destroyed  the  crop  or  carried  it  off 
for  their  own  use.  This  policy  was  met  by  the 
Spartan  government  with  a  decree,  that  as  the  be- 
nefit derived  from  the  culture  of  these  lands  was 
solely  or  chiefly  enjoyed  by  the  enemy,  they  should 
be  allowed  to  lie  waste.  The  consequence  was  a 
scarcity  which,  with  the  discontent  of  the  owners  of 
the  deserted  properties,  led  to  a  sedition,  and  to  a 
clamour  for  the  popular  expedient  of  the  Greek  de- 
mocracies in  such  cases,  a  new  division  of  the  lands 
of  the  state.  The  ferment  thus  created  was  allayed 
by  the  eloquence  of  Tyrta3us  ;  an  example  of  the 
power  of  music  and  poetry  on  the  minds  of  those 
stern  citizens,  to  be  added  to  those  already  recorded 
of  Terpander  and  Thaletas.  Another  reported  ex- 
ercise of  his  political  influence  was  his  having  per- 
suaded the  Spartans,  after  a  great  defeat  and  carnage 
of  their  troops,  to  resort,  for  the  first  time,  to  the 
expedient  of  recruiting  their  army  from  the  Helots.-"- 
This  new  force  he  inspired  with  such  enthusiasm  as 
to  turn  the  tide  of  success  in  the  next  engagement. 

18.  The  legend  of  the  poet's  origin  and  first  con-  itsauthen- 
nexion  with  Sparta,  for  the  rest  is  all  in  substance  ^^^^' 
at  least  historical  fact,  if  occurring  in  the  annals  of 
some  chivalrous  war  of  our  own  middle  ages,  would 
not  perhaps  be  exposed  to  any  very  severe  scrutiny. 
The  afiriir  is  characteristic  of  the  relations  between 
rival  members  of  petty  martial  confederacies  in  primi- 
tive times,  and  might  possibly  find  a  parallel  in  the 
authentic  chronicles  of  the  Hanse  towns  or  Italian 
republics.     But  the  spirit  of  modern  inquiry  is  less 

*  Pausan.  iv.  xvi.  3. 


188  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  HI. 

iiululgent  towards  such  traits  of  political  romance 
in  the  corresponding  periods  of  antient  history  ;  and 
the  wliole  story  has,  in  authoritative  quarters,  been 
rejected  as  fabulous.  That  it  is  however  founded 
on  fact,  in  so  far  at  least  as  respects  the  foreign 
origin  of  the  poet,  which  forms  the  essence  of  the 
legend,  seems  to  be  established  by  the  concurrent 
testimony  of  all  the  earliest  and  best  authorities^, 
inclusive  of  that  of  the  Lacedsemonians  themselves. 
Not  only  is  there  no  notice  of  any  attempt  on  their 
part  to  dispute  the  foreign  birth  of  Tyrtaeus,  but,  in 
one  of  the  celebrated  Laconian  apophthegms^  in  the 
collection  of  Plutarch,  Pausanias,  the  victor  of  Plataea, 
when  asked  why  the  Spartans  had  conceded  to  Tyr- 
tasus  the  rights  of  citizenship,  replies :  "  In  order  that 
no  foreigner  might  appear  ever  to  have  held  sway  in 
Lacedcemon."  That  the  Spartans  would,  had  Tyrtaaus 
really  been  a  native  Laconian,  ever  have  sanctioned 
the  alienation  of  so  distinguished  a  national  hero  in 
their  popular  tradition,  or  that  Plutarch,  in  a  professed 
treatise  on  their  character  and  institutions,  should  ever 
have  placed  such  an  acknowledgement  of  that  hero's 
foreign  birth  in  their  mouth,  is  scarcely  credible.  The 
powerful  influence  of  lyric  song  on  the  political  des- 
tinies of  Sparta  during  this  period,  is  itself  a  no  less 
certain  fact  than  that  she  was  indebted  to  foreio:ners 
rather  than  her  own  citizens  for  the  exercise  of  that 
influence.  There  can  therefore  be  as  little  real  ground 
for  denying  a  share  of  it  to  the  Athenian  Tyrtasus, 
as  to  the  Lesbian  Terpander  or  the  Cretan  Thaletas. 

^  Nor  is  there  any  trace  of  scepticism  but  in  a  single  anonymous  notice 
of  Suidas  (v.  Tupr.),  where  Tyrtaeus  is  called  "  a  Milesian,  or  a  Laconian  ; " 
while  in  another  article  of  the  same  compilation  the  popular  account  is 
preferred. 

^  Plut.  Apophth.  Lac.  p.  230. 


Ch.  Iir.  §18.  TYRTiEUS.       680— 6G0B.C.  189 

The  Athenians  of  later  times  would  not  be  slow  to 
turn  the  circumstance  to  satirical  account,  in  favour 
of  their  boasted  intellectual  superiority  to  their  Laco- 
nian  rivals ;  and  the  story  of  an  Attic  man  of  letters 
restoring  by  his  inspiring  minstrelsy  the  fortunes  of 
the  Messenian  campaign,  might  easily  assume  the 
turn  of  an  "  Athenian  schoolmaster  superior  in  the 
art  of  war  to  the  Spartan  generals."  As  to  his  lame- 
ness, the  literal  acceptation  of  the  legend  is  at  least 
as  rational  as  the  interpretation,  itself  certainly  some- 
what lame,  suggested  by  modern  critics,  that  the 
allusion  is  to  the  limping  style  of  his  pentameter 
verse. ^  It  is  also  worthy  of  remark,  that  neither  in 
his  own  poems  nor  in  the  current  tradition  is  there 
any  hint  of  actual  military  exploit  performed  by  Tyr- 
tseus.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  distinctly  stated  by 
the  authorities  who  have  preserved  the  most  specific 
details  of  that  tradition,  that  he  remained  with  the 
priests  and  augurs  in  the  rear  of  the  battle  during 
action,  to  encourage  the  troops  in  his  capacity  of 
counsellor  and  poet.-  It  were  certainly  somewhat 
strange  that  a  Spartan  hero,  whether  poet  or  private 
citizen,  unless  under  some  such  peculiar  circumstances 
of  physical  disqualification  as  those  recorded  in  the 
legend  for  the  most  essential  duties  incumbent  on 
every  Spartan,  should  have  obtained  so  high  a  celebrity 
merely  by  inculcating  those  duties,  without  being 
himself  at  all  distinguished  for  their  performance. 

An  argument  however,  in  favour  of  the  indigenous 
Spartan  origin  of  Tyrtasus  has  been  adduced,  with  some 
hesitation  by  antient^,  more  confidently  by  modern 


1  Thiersch,  Act.  Monac.  vol.  in.  p.  594.  ^  Pausan.  iv.  xvi.  1. 

»  Strab.  VIII.  p.  362. 


190  BIOGRAPHY    OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  HI. 

critics^  from  an  extant  passage  of  his  own  works, 
where,  reminding  his  fellow-warriors  of  the  martial 
feats  of  their  Dorian  ancestors,  he  uses  the  expres- 
sions "  we  "  and  "  our,"  thus  identifyhig,  it  is  urged, 
his  own  origin  with  that  of  the  audience  whom  he 
addresses.  A  sufficient  answer  to  this  argument  is 
contained  in  the  Laconian  apophthegm  above  cited 
from  Plutarch,  where  the  republic  is  described  as 
having  conferred  on  the  alien  poet  the  unusual  boon 
of  a  full  right  of  citizenship,  "  in  order  that  no 
foreigner  might  exercise  authority  over  them."  The 
language  of  the  poet  and  of  the  apophthegm  thus 
mutually  illustrate  each  other.  Tyrtasus,  as  an 
adopted  son  of  Sparta,  was  not  only  entitled,  but 
bound,  to  merge  his  foreign  blood  and  associations  in 
his  new  privilege.  But  apart  from  any  such  testi- 
mony, even  a  less  thoroughly  naturalised  foreigner, 
when  once  installed  as  the  state  poet  and  inspired 
organ  of  the  national  enthusiasm,  could  hardly  be  held, 
in  his  stirring  addresses,  to  a  rigid  maintenance  of 
the  distinction  between  his  own  personal  share  in  the 
common  fund  of  patriotic  feeling  and  that  of  his 
adopted  countrymen.  Whether  a  Spartan  by  birth 
or  by  adoption,  he  spoke  henceforth  not  as  Tyrtseus 
but  as  the  Muse  of  Sparta ;  and  the  observance  of 
any  such  subtleties  as  that  here  imagined,  in  the 
midst  of  his  poetical  fervour,  could  as  little  occur  to 
himself  as  be  expected  by  his  public. 
His  age,  19.  The  age  of   Tyrt£eus   depends  entirely   upon 

wS!'"'  ^^^^  o^  th^  second  Messenian  war  in  which  he  figures, 
and  which  is  itself  a  doubtful  point  of  chronology. 
Pausanias  places  the  commencement  of  the  war  in  the 

'  Conf.  Thiersch,  op.  cit.  p.  600. ;  Bernhardy,  Grundr.  der  Griech.  Lit. 
vol.  II.  p.  344. 


Ch.  III.  §  19.  TYRTiEUS.       C80— GGO  B.C.  191 

fourth  year  of  the  xxiiird  Olymp.,  or  685  B.C. ;  other 
authorities  bring  that  epoch,  and  by  consequence  the 
age  of  TyrtaBus,  from  forty  to  fifty  years  lower.  The 
point  is  one  of  some  difficulty  ;  but  upon  the  whole 
a  preference  may  be  given  to  the  testimony  of  Pau- 
sanias,  both  on  its  own  merits,  and  in  consideration 
of  the  peculiar  care  and  zeal  with  which  he  has 
brought  his  habits  of  antiquarian  research  to  bear 
upon  the  Spartan  and  Messenian  history  of  this  period. 
His  view  is  also  more  in  unison  with  the  dates  of 
other  contemporary  events  incidentally  connected 
with  the  vicissitudes  of  the  war.  As  the  struggle 
lasted,  in  round  numbers,  about  twenty  years,  the 
poetical  distinction  of  Tyrtseus,  who  first  appears  at 
a  comparatively  advanced  period  of  it,  may  be  placed 
between  680  and  660  b.c.i 

The  personal  character  of  Tyrtseus,  as  exhibited  in 
his  remains,  appears  but  a  reflexion  of  the  national 
genius  of  his  adopted  countrymen.  Every  sentiment 
or  allusion  may  be  said  to  embody  some  peculiarity, 
military  or  political,  of  that  singular  people.  This 
attribute  of  his  muse  was  warmly  and  durably  ap- 
preciated on  their  part ;  and  his  works  constituted  in 
every  age  of  the  republic  the  most  popular  text-book 
of  martial  song,  and  the  most  approved  standard  of 
national  and  patriotic  feeling.^  Later  grammarians 
allude  to  a  division  of  them  into  five  books ^,  upon 
what  principle  does  not  appear.  By  earlier  autho- 
rities they  are  classed,  with  reference  to  their  subject, 
under  three  heads.^     The  first  head  comprised  mar- 

^  Clint.  Fast.  Hell.  vol.  i.  p.  183.  251.  sqq.     See  Appendix  D. 
^  Lycurg.  contr.  Leocr.  §  28. ;  Athen.  xiv.  p.  630. ;  Plat,  de  Legg. 
p.  629.  660.  sq. ;  Plut.  vlt.  Cleom.  ii. ;  conf.  Bacb,  op.  cit.  p.  54. 
^   Suid.  V.  TvpTa7os. 
*  Pausan.  iv.  xv.  3. ;  Aristot.  Pol.  v.  vi. ;  conf.  Suid.  v.  Tupr. 


192  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  ni. 

tial  addresses  or  exhortations ;  the  second  consisted 
of  odes  of  a  political  tendency,  inculcating  obedience 
to  the  laws,  and  maintenance  of  the  Spartan  consti- 
tution and  customs.  The  compositions  of  both  these 
classes  were  in  elegiac  measure  and  Ionic  dialect. 
The  third  head  comprised  war  marches  (enoplia,  em- 
bateria),  in  anapasstic  measure  and  Doric  dialect,  sung 
in  chorus  by  the  phalanx  in  advancing  to  the  attack. 
The  poems  of  all  three  classes  were  considered  among 
the  most  excellent  of  their  kind.  The  performance 
of  his  martial  and  political  odes  on  festive  occasions 
became  a  habitual  custom  at  Lacedremon,  especially 
in  time  of  war,  when  they  were  chanted  by  the 
troops  at  their  meals,  or  when  assembled  in  front  of 
the  general's  tent  door.^  The  war  marches  of  Tyr- 
tseus  also  constituted  the  national  standards  in  that 
branch  of  composition ;  and  the  anapa3stic  measure 
in  which  they  were  composed,  called  in  memory 
of  its  origin  Messeniac,  continued  to  be  preferred  as 
the  favourite  rhythm  for  the  regulation  of  military 
movements.^ 

The  preserved  passages  of  Tyrtasus  are  chiefly  of 
the  elegiac  order.  Several  of  them  can  hardly  be 
called  fragments,  as  extending  to  from  thirty  to  fifty 
verses  each,  and  the  longest^,  though  not  distinctly 
transmitted  as  such,  possesses  all  the  requisites  of 
an  integral  composition.  They  offer  in  their  general 
character  much  resemblance  to  the  remains  of  Calli- 
nus  ;  and  the  correspondence  in  several  verses  is  such 
as  almost  to  warrant  a  su,spicion  of  plagiarism  by  the 
more  recent  author.  The  style  of  Tyrtseus  however 
is  marked  by  a  greater  vigour  and  terseness,  and  his 

*  Lycurg.  contr.  Leocr.  §  28. ;  Philoch.  ap.  Atheu.  xiv.  p.  630. 

'  Bach,  p.  73.  sq.  ^  Frg.  viii. 


I 


Ch.  111.  §  10.  TYRT^EUS.       680— GGO  B.  C.  193 

addresses  by  a  spirit  of  ardent  enthusiasm,  and  fierce 
or  even  ferocious  determination,  very  different  from 
the  morbid  desponding  patriotism  of  Callinus.  The 
martial  appeals  of  Tyrtteus  are  also  enlivened  by  il- 
lustrations of  the  soldiers'  duties,  and  of  the  scenes 
and  adventures  of  the  battle  field.  Among  the  most 
graphic  of  his  pictures  is  the  description  ^  of  the  war- 
rior advancing  to  the  encounter  "  with  compressed 
"lips  and  firm  step,  brandishing  his  spear  in  his  hand, 
"  while  his  plume  nods  terribly  from  his  helmet."  The 
excellence  of  a  glorious  death  is  placed  in  spirited 
contrast  with  the  wretchedness  of  life  purchased  by 
loss  of  honour  ;  and  the  baseness  of  flight  is  further 
beautifully  illustrated  by  the  reflexion,  that,  "  in  pro- 
"  portion  as  it  insures  safety  to  the  young  and  lusty 
"  combatant,  it  entails  death  on  the  grey-headed  vete- 
"  ran,  whose  support  and  defence  ought  to  be  held  a 
"  sacred  duty  by  his  youthful  comrades."  ^ 

To  the  political  order  of  elegy  belonged  what  ap- 
pears to  have  been  the  most  elaborate  work  of  Tyr- 
taeus,  and  the  only  one  mentioned  by  the  antients 
under  a  distinct  title,  the  Eunomia,  or  Politia.^  The 
former  title,  literally,  "  excellent  system  of  laws,"  is 
the  same  by  which  the  Pythoness,  in  her  celebrated 
enuntiation  to  Lycurgus  *,  designates  his  code,  and  by 
reference  to  which  the  lawgiver  was  afterwards  him- 
self honoured  with  the  figurative  patronymic  of  Son 
of  Eunomus.  The  poem,  of  which  some  fine  remains 
are  extant^,  was  a  eulogistic  commentary,  as  its  name 
implies,  on  the  Spartan"  constitution.  It  appears  to 
have  been  composed  for  the  purpose  of  allaying  the 

'  Frg   VII.  21.  sqq.  ;  conf.  vi.  31.  -  Frjr.  vi.  21. 

^  Aristot.  Polit.  v.  vi. ;  Strab.  viii.  p.  362. ;  Suid.  v.  Tvpr. 

*  Plut.  in  vit.  V.  ^  Frg.  i. 

VOL.  III.  O 


]  1)4  BIOGRAPHY    OF    LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

agrarian  sedition  above  noticed,  and  to  have  been 
addressed  more  immediately  to  the  instigators  of  that 
disturbance.  It  was  interspersed  with  allusions  to 
the  glories  of  the  Heraclid  race,  and  to  the  rise  and 
ascendancy  of  the  Dorian  power  under  the  auspices 
of  so  admirable  a  form  of  government,  the  special 
gift  of  Apollo  to  his  favoured  people.  Stress  was  also 
laid  on  the  triumphs  achieved  in  the  first  war  over 
the  same  enemy,  the  prospect  of  whose  complete 
subjection  was  now  endangered  by  a  factious  impa- 
tience of  the  evils  inseparable  from  such  a  contest. 
Even  in  this  poem  military  descriptions  seem  greatly 
to  have  abounded,  as  most  of  the  existing  fragments 
partake  of  the  martial  character.  The  dialect  of 
these  elegies  is  the  same  modification  of  the  old  epic, 
or  Homeric  (here  slightly  tinged  with  ^olo-Doric 
forms ^),  as  that  used  in  the  parallel  compositions  of 
Callinus  and  Archilochus.  The  preference  of  this 
idiom  by  a  Spartan  minstrel,  may  be  attributed  partly 
to  a  deference  to  the  example  of  those  earlier  standard 
elegiac  authors ;  partly  to  a  similar  deference  to  the 
old  hexameter  style,  from  which  the  elegy  or  penta- 
meter is  itself  an  emanation  ;  partly,  perhaps,  to  the 
poet's  Ionian  origin. 

The  few  remaining  passages  of  the  embateria,  or  war 
marches,  in  anapaestic  measure  and  Doric  dialect,  are, 
upon  the  whole,  the  most  original  and  characteristic 
portions  of  the  extant  works  of  this  poet.  They  are 
not  only  the  earliest  remaining  examples  of  the  pure 
anapsestic  metre,  but  the  only  preserved  specimens  of 
the  Greek  war  march,  and  so  excellent  in  their  kind  as 
painfully  to  tantalise  the  appetite  for  more.     Replete 

^  Frgg.  II.  7.,  V.  3. 


Ch.  III.  ^  19.  TYRT^US.       680— 660  B.  C.  195 

with  fire  and  energy  in  sound  and  sense,  they  aflford 
abundant  proof  of  the  value  of  the  anapasstic  verse, 
and  of  the  Greek  tongue,  in  their  adaptation  to  the 
rhythm  of  military  movements :  ^ 

oiysT^  (6  "^Traprag  suav^pou 
xoUpoi  rraripcov  TroXi^rat  * 

hopit  8'  suToXixcog  TraT^XovTsg, 

[XT]  (Psi^Qfxeuoi  rag  ^uyoLg^ 

ou  yap  TrctTpiov  rag  "^TrapTug.    .    .    . 

To  the  field,  to  the  field,  gallant  Spartan  band, 

Worthy  sons,  like  your  sires,  of  our  warlike  land  ! 

Let  each  arm  be  prepared  for  its  part  in  the  fight. 

Fix  the  shield  on  the  left,  poise  the  spear  with  the  right. 

Let  no  care  for  your  lives  in  your  bosoms  find  place. 

No  such  care  knew  the  heroes  of  old  Spartan  race 


The  style  of  Tyrtaeus  is  more  remarkable  for  sim- 
plicity and  vigour  than  polish  and  refinement.  He 
brings  home  facts  and  objects  in  their  native  reality 
to  the  apprehension,  with  little  variety  of  phraseo- 
logy, and  rarely  an  attempt  at  figurative  illustration. 
The  frequent  recurrence,  in  his  longer  addresses,  of 
the  same  ideas  and  images  ^,  a  consequence,  in  some 
degree,  of  the  almost  exclusively  martial  character 
of  his  odes,  amounts  occasionally  to  a  sort  of  poet- 
ical commonplace,  similar  to  that  authorised  in  the 
popular  usage  of  the  heroic  minstrelsy.  Here  how- 
ever the  repetition,  in  its  connexion  with  otherwise 
broadly  different  materials  and  style,  instead  of  con- 

^  Frg.  XI.  The  anapaest  embodies  in  fact  the  natural  march  time,  and 
was  adopted  as  such,  accordingly,  by  the  Romans  (Ammian.  Marcell.  xxiv. 
6. ;  Cic.  Tusc.  Disp.  ii.  16.))  as  it  has  been  in  familiar  modern  practice. 

^  Of  the  phrase  irpofxaxoi,  for  example:  frgg.  vi.  1.  21.  30.,  vii.  4.  12. 
alibi ;  conf.  frgg.  vi.  31.,  vii.  21. 

o  2 


196  BIOGRAPHY    OF   LYEIC    TOETS.  Book  III. 

tlncing,  as  in  the  old  epic  poem,  to  harmony  or  pre- 
cision, imparts  at  times  an  incoherent  or  disjointed 
character  to  the  text.  This  latter  pecnliarity  may 
also,  in  part,  be  a  consequence  of  the  fragmentary 
form  in  wliich  the  passages  have  been  transmitted. 
It  has,  however,  afforded  matter  for  the  speculations 
of  those  modern  critics  who  would  discover,  in  all 
such  distinctive  peculiarities,  so  many  evidences  of 
miscellaneous  origin  or  systematic  corruption.  Such 
theories,  precarious  as  they  are  even  in  the  case  of 
entire  compositions,  become  comparatively  nugatory 
as  applied  to  detached  passages  of  works  which 
must  have  been,  in  their  integrity,  of  an  essentially 
fugitive  or  desultory  character.  It  were  certainly 
not  easy  to  find  a  similar  collection  of  fragments 
displaying,  in  its  variety  or  uniformity,  its  merits  or 
defects,  more  satisfactory  internal  evidence  of  a  single 
author.^ 

The  elegiac  verse  of  Tyrtteus  is  distinguished  by 
regularity  and  emphatic  precision  of  structure.  As 
a  general  rule,  each  distich  comprises  a  more  or  less 
distinct  clause  of  the  text :  and  rarely,  if  ever,  does  a 
full  period  seem  to  have  occurred  at  the  close  of  a 
hexameter,  or  in  the  middle  of  either  verse,  according 
at  least  to  the  genuine  arrangement  of  the  text, 
although  here  and  there  introduced  by  the  caprice 
of  editors.     That    Tyrteeus   Avas   familiar   with   the 


'  See  supi'a,  p.  137.  note  5.  That  tlie  national  Spai'tan  collection  of 
martial  songs  by  native  Spartan  warriors  should  ever  have  been  recognised 
by  the  Spartans  themselves,  for  so  recognised  the  poems  of  "Tyrtaeus" 
unquestionably  were,  as  the  compositions  of  an  Athenian  stranger,  seems 
something,  to  say  the  least,  very  marvellous.  Such  however  in  substance, 
is  the  theory  of  Thiersch,  when  stripped  of  all  its  appendages  of  Wolfian 
subtlety  and  learned  illustration. 


Cii.  III.  §19.  TYRTtEUS.       680— 660  B.C.  197 

poems  of  Homer  may  be  inferred  from  several  pas- 
sages ^  of  his  remains,  embodying  the  spirit,  and  to 
a  certain  extent  the  letter,  of  parallel  portions  of  the 
Iliad.  Of  his  musical  talents  less  is  said  by  the  an- 
tients  than  in  the  case  of  most  other  equally  distin- 
guished lyric  poets  of  this  period.^ 

^  Compare  frg.  vi.  19.  sqq.  with  II.  xxii.  71.  sqq. ;  frg.  vii.  10.  sqq. 
with  II.  V.  529.  sqq.,  xv.  561.  sqq. ;  frg.  vii.  31.  with  II.  xiii.  129. 

-  He  is  mentioned  by  Pollux,  iv.  107.,  as  the  institutor  of  the  Spartan 
musical  festival  of  the  Trichoria  (supra,  p.  128.).  Plutarch  however, 
apparently  with  better  reason,  traces  the  origin  of  this  primitive  national 
solemnity  to  the  time  of  Lycurgus.     Plut.  in  Lye.  xxi. 


I 


108 


BIOGRAPHY    OF    LYRIC    POETS. 


Book  111. 


CHAP.   IV. 

BIOGRAPHY  OF  LYRIC  POETS.  ALCMAN.  ARION.  STESI- 
CHORUS.  XANTHUS.  SACADAS.  XEN0CR1TU8.  EUNO- 
MUS. 

1.  ALCMAN.      1118   ORIGIN,   BIRTHPLACE,    AND  TIMES. — 2.  STYLE  AND  TENDENCY 

OF    HIS  POETRY.       HIS    TITLE    TO  THE    CHARACTER    OF    "  LACONIAN    POET." 

3.    HIS     RHYTHMICAL     IMPROVEMENTS. 4.     HIS     REMAINS. 5.    ARION    AND 

HIS    DOLPHIN. 6.   PROBABLE    IMPORT    OF    THE    LEGEND. 7.   HIS    IMPUTED 

ODE    TO    NEPTtrSE. 8.   CHARACTER     OF     HIS    GENUINE    TYORKS. 9.   STESI- 

CHORUS.  HIS  BIRTHPLACE.  HIS  LOCRIAN  ORIGIN.  HIS  DESCENT  FROM 
HE8IOD. 10.  HIS  FAMILY.  INTERCOURSE  AVITH  PHAi^UlIS.  —  IL  BLIND- 
NESS.      "  RECANTATION." 12.    SQGRATION    TO    CATANA.       DEATH   AND    TOMB. 

PERSONAL    CHARACTER. 13.   INVENTIVE    GENIUS.        EPICO-LYRIC    STYLE. 

1 4.  ITS    PRIOR    CULTIVATION    BY    XANTHUS 15.  HOMERIC    ATTRIBUTES    OF 

STESICHORUS. 16.   HIS  WORKS  AND  THEIR  REMAINS.      EUROPIA,      GERYONIg. 

CERBERUS.        CYCNUS.        SCYLLA.       ATHLA     PELLE.        SYOTHER^.       ERIPHYIE. 

—  17.    ILII-PERSIS. 18.    PALINODIA. 19.    CALYCE.         RHADIXA.         PJEANS. 

APOCRYPHAL     WORKS.         FABLES. 20.     METRES.         DIALECT. 21.     OTHER 

EPICO-LYRIC   POETS.      SACADAS.      XENOCRITUS.       EUNOMUS. 


Alcman. 
His  origin 
and  timef. 


ALCMAN.     670—610  B.  C 

1.  Alcman^,  the  next  as  he  is  the  last  of  the  more 
illustrious  masters  of  the  Spartan  school  of  lyric 
poetry,  flourished,  according  to  the  various  notices  of 
chronologers,  from  about  670  B.C.  down  to  611  B.C." 
The  length  of  the  period  comprised  within  these  two 
dates  is  justified  by  his  own  pointed  allusion  in  one 
of  his  odes  to  his  advanced  old  age.  The  former 
date  may  be  taken  conjecturally  as  the  epoch  of  his 
youth  or  first  notoriety ;  the  latter,  as  that  of  his 
death.     His  period  of  poetical  activity  would   thus 

*  Conf.  Wekk.  Fragm.  Alcni. ;  Bergk,  Poett.  ijrv.  p.  538. ;  Scbneidewin, 
Delect.  Poes.  Gr.  sect.  ni.  p.  238.  The  fi-agments  are  here  cited  accord- 
ing to  the  arrangement  of  Welcker. 

'  Clint.  Fast.  Hell.  vol.  i.  pp.  189.  195.  201.  217. 


Cu.  IV.  §1.  ALCMAN.      670— 610  B.C.  199 

have  commenced  about  the  close  of  the  second  great 
Messenian  war,  and  the  establishment  of  the  Spartan 
ascendancy  over  the  Dorian  peninsula.  Accordingly, 
both  the  style  and  the  subjects  of  his  compositions 
bespeak  a  period  of  national  prosperity  and  repose, 
or  even  of  festive  enjoyment,  broadly  contrasted  with 
the  wars,  turbulence,  and  internal  dissensions,  sha- 
dowed forth  in  the  odes  of  his  elder  contemporary 
Tyrtaeus.  While  rivalling,  or  even  surpassing,  his 
great  predecessors  Terpander  and  Tyrtaeus,  in  the 
popularity  enjoyed  by  his  muse  among  his  Lace- 
daemonian fellow-citizens,  Alcman  possesses  as  little 
claim  as  those  masters  to  the  honour  of  genuine 
Lacedaemonian  origin.  By  the  concurrent  testimony 
of  the  best  authorities,  corroborated  incidentally  by 
himself,  he  was  a  Lydian  slave  in  the  family  of 
Agesidas  a  Spartan  citizen,  by  whom  he  was  eman- 
cipated, and  under  whose  patronage  he  acquired  such 
subordinate  political  rights  as  were  compatible  with 
his  previous  condition.^  It  does  not  distinctly  appear 
Avhether  he  was  himself  a  native  Lydian,  or  a  son  of 
Lydian  parents  settled  in  Laconia ;  but  the  former 
view  is  the  more  probable,  and  is  partially  borne  out 
by  a  passage  of  his  own  works  where  he  connects  a 
certain  refinement  of  tastes,  for  which  he  assumes 
credit,  with  the  Lydian  capital,  in  terms  seeming  to 
claim  it  as  his  birthplace.^  That  he  must  in  this 
case  have  been  brought  early  to  Lacedaemon,  may 
be  inferred  from  his  mastery  of  the  Greek  tongue, 
especially  the  Laconian  dialect.     According  to  some 

1  Crates  ap.  Suid.  v.  "A\Kfidv ;  Heracl.  Polit.  frg.  ii.  Schneidew. ; 
Veil.  Paterc.  i.  xviii. ;  Alex.  .Etol.  in  Anthol.  Pal.  vn.  ep.  709.  ;  Aiitip.. 
et  Leonid,  ibid.  18,  19. ;  conf.  Clint.  Fast.  Hell.  vol.  i.  p.  189. 

*  Frg.  XI. 

o  4 


200  BIOGRAPHY    OF    LYRIC   POETS.  Boor  III. 

authorities,  his  father's  name  was  Damas ;  according 
to  otliers,  Tityrus.^ 
style  aiHi  2.   Tlic  morc  prominent  features  of  Alcman's  fjenius 

tendency  of  •     i  /> 

his  poetry,  prcscnt,  ccrtamly,  more  of  an  Asiatic  than  a  Spartan 
character  ;  the  extant  specimens  of  his  muse  being 
cliiefly  of  an  amorous  tendency,  or  in  celebration  of 
tiie  pleasures  of  the  table.  Of  the  poems  of  the 
former  class  a  large  proportion  appear  to  have  been 
those  called  Parthenia,  performed  at  certain  public 
festivals  and  under  national  auspices,  in  honour  of 
the  youthful  portion  of  the  female  citizens.-  The 
circumstance  of  his  being  the  earliest  recorded  author 
of  odes  of  this  rather  peculiar  character,  may  have 
obtained  him  the  credit  which  he  enjoys  with  the 
later  grammarians,  as  "  inventor  "  of  the  love  song.*^ 
The  only  member  of  the  sex  whom  he  celebrates  by 
name  is  Megalostrata"*,  described  by  some  commen- 
tators, but  on  no  competent  authority,  as  herself  a 
proficient  in  the  poetical  art.  These  compositions 
are  censured  by  the  antients  for  their  voluptuous  or 
even  licentious  style  ^;  and  their  author  is  ranked,  in 
respect  to  this  peculiarity  of  his  muse,  in  the  same 
category  as  Anacreon.  This  judgement  is  also  amply 
justified  by  the  remains  of  Alcman,  which  are  for 
the  most  part  of  a  light  and  jovial,  or  even  mere- 
tricious tendency,  savouring  more  of  iEolian  or 
Lydian  than  Dorian  genius.  Yet  it  is  certain  that 
the  same  rank  allotted  to  the  Athenian  Tyrtseus,  as 
representative  of  Spartan  national  feeling  in  the  mar- 
tial and  political  orders  of  poetry  and  music,  Avas 
enjoyed  by  the  Lydian  Alcman  in   the  more  social 

,,*  Suid.  loc.  cit.  ;  couf.  Welck.  p.  4.  -  Supra,  p.  74. 

^  Suid.  loc.  cit.  ;  couf.  Athen.  xiii.  p.  600  i\  ^  Frg.  xxvi.  i«(j[. 

*  Ai'chjt.  et  ChaniaBl.  ap.  Athen.  xiii.  p.  600  f. 


Gu.  IV.  §2.  ALCMAN.       670-610  B.C.  201 

and  familiar  departments  of  the  same  arts.  This 
congeniality  of  his  style  to  the  taste  of  the  Spartan 
public,  with  his  skill  in  adapting  the  rugged  forms 
of  the  Laconian  dialect  to  the  livelier  more  popular 
branches  of  lyric  composition,  obtained  for  him  the 
proud  title  of  "  Laconian"  or  "  Lacedaemonian  poet  " 
by  preeminence ;  under  which  title  he  is  as  familiarly 
cited  by  his  quoters  and  commentators  as  under  his 
proper  name  of  Alcman. 

From   all  this    it  would   appear,    either  that  the  his  title 
ascetic  contempt  for  sensual  indulgence  on  Avhich  the  racterof**" 
Spartans  afterwards  prided  themselves  had  not  yet  "}^^^  ^'^^'^J 

i  i  ''         man  poet. 

been  fully  matured,  or  that  the  legislative  rigour  of 
their  public  morality  was  compatible,  in  the  days  of 
Alcman,  with  much  freedom  of  social  habits.^  The 
great  importance  attached  by  the  "  Laconian  poet  " 
to  the  subject  of  eating  and  drinking  forms,  it  may 
be  added,  a  no  less  prominent  feature,  both  of  his 
personal  and  poetical  character,  than  his  turn  for 
sexual  gallantry.  A  large  portion  of  his  remains 
are  devoted  to  elaborate  descriptions  of  particular 
dishes,  with  eulogies  of  such  as  were  to  his  own 
taste,  and  directions  for  their  preparation."-  He  also 
boasts,  in  no  measured  terms,  of  the  vastness  of  his 
appetite  for  this  unpoetical  species  of  luxury.  He 
is  hence  habitually  quoted,  by  Athenseus  and  other 
popular  writers  on  convivial   subjects,  as  the  chief 

'  The  frequent  and  familiar  allusions  to  gold  and  other  objects  of 
luxury  or  social  splendour  by  "the  Spartan  poet,"  iu  these  popular 
Spartan  odes  (frgg.  xxv.  xxix.  xxx.  xvii.),  are  also  in  cni'ious  conflict 
with  the  traditional  banishment  by  Lycurgus  (Pint,  in  Vit.  ix. ;  conf. 
Lucon.  Apophth.  p.  226.)  of  the  precious  metals,  and  all  other  more 
sumptuous  appendages  of  civilised  life,  from  the  LacedEemonian  state. 

-  Frgg.  XVII— XX.,  xxiii — XXV.,  xxviii,  xxix.,  lxxxiv.  alibi ;  all  in 
the  broadest  possible  conflict  with  Plutarch,  Vit.  Lye.  x.  alibi. 


202  BIOGRAPHY    OF    LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

authority  of  this  early  period  on  some  of  the  more 
delicate  branches  of  the  art  of  good  livin<?.  Several 
of  the  dishes  described  and  commended  by  him  belong 
rather  to  the  head  of  pastry  or  confectionary  than 
to  that  of  substantial  diet  ^,  and  are,  by  consequence, 
more  peculiarly  at  variance  with  the  popular  notions 
of  the  black  broth  school  of  cookery.  He  disclaims 
however,  in  very  emphatic  terms,  any  desire  to  indulge 
in  more  dainty  diet  than  his  fellow-citizens  ^ ;  pluming 
himself  less  on  the  quality  than  the  quantity  of  his 
meals,  as  his  title  to  the  designation,  in  which  he  seems 
to  have  gloried,  of  "the  voracious  Alcman."^  The 
loathsome  disease  of  which,  like  Sylla,  Pherecydes, 
and  some  other  great  men,  he  is  said  to  have  died,  has 
hence  been  ascribed  to  his  gluttonous  habits.^  Yet, 
from  allusions  contained  in  his  extant  passages,  he 
would  seem  to  have  lived  to  an  advanced  age.^  His 
taste  for  wine  was  equally  liberal.  In  one  place  he 
enumerates  five  kinds,  several  of  which  appear  to 
have  been  of  foreign  growth.^  But  neither  his  own 
text,  nor  the  notices  of  his  life,  indicate  any  turn  for 
intemperate  conviviality. 
His  rhyth-  3.  Alcmau  posscsscs  a  strong  claim  to  the  honour, 
prove-  '  if  i^ot  of  inventing,  of  maturing  at  least  the  proper 
melic  school  of  Greek  lyric  poetry.  Terpander,  Tha- 
letas,  and  other  earlier  composers  of  Spartan  celebrity, 
while  uniting  in  some  degree  the  literary  with  the 

'  ■'^'"gg"  xviii.  XXVIII.  But  for  the  little  taste  generally  displayed  by 
Thucydides  for  poetical  citation  or  allusion,  the  suspicion  might  naturally 
arise  from  a  comparison  with  these  passages,  that  the  titles  fxr\KOiva  /le/xfAi- 
TufjLev7\v,  and  \lvov  (TTTtpixa  KEKou/xeVoi',  applied  by  him  (iv.  27.)  to  certain 
articles  of  Laconian  diet,  were  fragments  of  Alcman. 

^  Frg.  XXIII.  ^  Frg.  xxiii. 

*  Aristot.  Hist.  An.  v.  .31.;  Plin.  H.N.  xi.  39.;  conf.  Welck.  p.  14. 
sq. ;  .lElian.  V.  H,  i.  xxvii.  ^  Frg.  xii.  ®  Frg.  xv. 


ments. 


Ch.  IV.  §  3.  ALCMAN.       670— 610  B.C.  203 

inelic  branch  of  art,  rank  not  as  poets  but  as  musi- 
cians ;  Callinus,  Tyrtajus,  Arcliilochus,  on  the  other 
hand,  rank   not  as  musicians  but  as  poets.     In  the 
works  of  Alcman  is  first  observable  that  more  com- 
plete distinction  between  recitative  and  melic  com- 
position, which  forms  so  essential  a  characteristic  of 
the  more  advanced  stages  of  lyric  poetry.     As  the 
immediate  successor  or  younger  contemporary  of  Ter- 
pander,  and  enjoying  the  full  benefit  of  the  musical 
improvements    of  that   great    master,  Alcman   flou- 
rished at  a  period  peculiarly  favourable  for  the  exercise 
of  his  own  inventive  faculties  in  the  extension  of  those 
improvements  to  the  properly  poetical  department  of 
their  common  art.     He  is  celebrated,  accordingly,  as 
author  of  the  first  more  artificial  developement  of 
the  strophe,  the  foundation  of  the  higher  choral  styles 
of  composition.     The  strophe  indeed  in  its  simplest 
form,  was  probably  from  the  earliest  period  an  ele- 
ment of  the  popular  minstrelsy.     In  the  remains  of 
Archilochus  it  already  appears,  but  on  a  compara- 
tively  limited    scale,    and    imparting    epigrammatic 
rather  than  melic  spirit  to  the  text  of  an  ode.     In 
Alcman  it  assumes  a  fulness  of  form,  and  a  variety 
of  rhythmical  combination,  equalling  or  surpassing 
that  allotted  to  it  by  A1c9bus  or  Sappho.     His  Ly- 
dian  origin   therefore,  taken  in  connexion  with  the 
popularity  of  this  style  of  composition  in  the  contem- 
porary or  immediately  succeeding  school  of  ^olian 
poetry  on  the  same  Asiatic  coast,  and  with  a  marked 
tinge   of  iEolism   in   his    dialect  \    can   leave    little 
doubt  that  the   Greek  public  Vas  indebted  for  the 
germ  of  this,  as  of  other  similar  improvements   of 

^  Frgg.  passim  ;  conl".  Auctt.  ap.  Welck.  ad  li-g.  lxxvi.  ;  Eustatli.  acl 
Oa.  XV.  p.  1787. 


204  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  III. 

lyric  art,  to  an  iEolian  rather  than  a  Peloponnesian 
source.  Alcman  was  probably  not  so  much  the 
author  of  the  improvement,  as  the  instrument  of  its 
introduction  and  developement  on  a  wider  field  of 
influence  and  popularity.  The  exercise  of  his  in- 
ventive talent  has  also  been  supposed,  on  grounds 
the  validity  of  which  has  been  considered  in  a  pre- 
vious chapter  \  to  have  extended  from  the  simpler 
inelic  order  of  strophe  to  the  more  complicated  choric 
or  antistrophic  form  of  the  same  metrical  refinement. 
The  existing  passages  of  his  works  afford,  indeed,  no 
distinct  evidence  of  antistrophic  arrangement.  But 
while  neither  their  number  nor  state  of  preservation 
is  sufficient  to  constitute  them  in  this  case  any  fair 
criterion  of  the  entire  collection,  it  is  certain  that 
several  of  the  metrical  combinations  comprised  in 
that  collection  are  so  far  prolonged  beyond  the  ordi- 
nary limits  of  the  melic  strophe,  as  to  Avarrant  the 
belief  of  their  having  formed  part  of  regular  choral 
compositions.  Alcman  is  also  mentioned  by  antient 
critics  as  author  of  an  ode  of  fourteen  strophes  or 
stanzas,  consisting  of  two  sets  of  seven,  each  of  which 
sets  was  in  a  diiFerent  measure.^  But  it  does  not 
appear  in  what  mode  the  members  of  the  series 
were  disposed,  whether  the  two  varieties  of  form 
were  checquered  with  each  other  in  alternate  pairs, 
and  arranged,  consequently,  in  regular  antistrophic 
form  ;  or  whether  each  set  of  stanzas  was  ranged  by 
itself  in  continuous  order,  forming  as  it  were  one 
prolonged  strophe,  to  which  the  other  seven  stanzas 
may  have  corresponded  as  antistrophe. 
His  works         4.  The  partlicnia'^,  or  virginal  songs,  which  occupied 

'  Supra,  p.  59.  ^  Hephaest.  p.  134.  Gaisf. 

^  Plut.  de  Mus.  XVII. ;  Alcm.  lii>.  i.  alibi. 


Ch.  IV.  §4.  ALCMAN.       070—610  6.0.  205 

two  ^  at  least  of  the  six  books  into  which  Alcman's  a^.i  their 
entire  collection  is  divided  by  the  grammarians^,  seem  remains. 
to  have  been  solely  or  chiefly  of  the  kind  above 
classed  ^  as  secular  or  profane  ;  those  namely  com- 
posed and  performed  in  honour  of  the  youthful  mem- 
bers of  the  female  sex.  Of  the  other  sacred  order  of 
parthenia,  sung  in  chorus  by  the  virgins  themselves, 
there  is  no  distinct  trace  in  this  poet's  remains ; 
although  such  compositions  appear  in  Sparta,  as  in 
Thebes  and  Athens,  to  have  formed  a  distinct  branch 
of  choral  poetry."^ 

Besides  the  parthenia,  Alcman  is  described  as  author 
of  hymns,  paeans,  prosodia,  hymenaea,  and  of  certain 
compositions  entitled  Diving  or  Tumbling  songs. ^ 
The  preserved  specimens  of  these  various  compositions 
can  hardly  be  said  to  justify  the  great  celebrity  of 
their  author.  Amid  much  that  is  commonplace,  or 
even  vulgar,  the  style  of  his  chaster  passages  seldom 
rises  above  a  tone  of  easy  colloquial  elegance ;  and,  even 
in  his  more  dignified  amorous  or  tender  moods,  his 
taste  for  the  lower  objects  of  sensual  indulgence  is  apt 
to  break  forth.  He  descanted  with  some  complacency, 
in  one  of  his  hymena?al  odes  it  would  appear,  on  the 
ingredients  used  in  the  preparation  of  certain  dainty 
cakes,  which  it  was  customary  to  hand  round  to  the 
female  choristers  while  engaged  in  chanting  the  praises 
of  the  bride.''  In  a  poetical  description  of  the  four 
seasons  ",  he  complains  of  spring,  on  account  of  the 
comparatively  scanty   stock  of  his  favourite  viands 

^  Frg.  XI.  ;  coiif.  Steph.  Byz.  v.  ipvaixv- 

^  Suid.  V.  'fii\Kfi.  3  QYy  \\  p   74   supra. 

■*  Paus.  III.  X.  8.,  IV.  xvi.  5.  alibi. 

^  Frg.  XXXII. ;  Menand.  Rh.  ap.  Welck.  ibid. ;  Plut.  de  Mus.  xvir. ; 
Leonid.  Tarent.  in  Antbol.  Palat.  vii.  19.;  Siiid.  et  Eudocia,  v.  'PlXk/j..  ; 
conf.  Welck.  op.  cit.  p.  9. 

**  Sosib.  ap.  Athen.  xiv.  p.  646.  "  Frg.  xxiv. 


206  BIOGRAPHY    OF    LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

with  which  that  part  of  the  year  supplied  his  table, 
but  congratulates  himself  on  the  increased  variety 
which  would  set  in  after  the  summer  solstice.^  His 
chief  excellence  appears  to  have  lain  in  his  descriptive 
powers.  The  best  and  one  of  the  longest  extant 
passages  ^  of  his  works  is  a  description  of  sleep,  or 
rather  of  night ;  a  description  unsurpassed,  perhaps 
unrivalled,  by  any  similar  passage  in  the  Greek  or 
any  other  language,  and  which  has  been  imitated  or 
paraphrased  by  many  distinguished  poets  :  ^ 

Trpcdvig  re  Ka\  ■^apa/ipai  • 

C^OXa  TSf  spTTSTcl  Q\  o(rcra.  Tpi<Psi  [xsT^aiva  yojot.' 

Qripsg  opBO-xcool  rs,  xa)  yevog  [xsT^Kracov ' 

Hoi  xvcohaTi   iv  ^svOsccri  7rop(pup6ig  a.7\.og' 

sbooiKTi  6'  olwviov 
(^vXa  ravon Tsooyoiv.    .    .    . 

Over  the  drowsy  earth  still  night  prevails. 

Calm  sleep  the  mountain  tops  and  shady  vales, 

The  rugged  cliflTs  and  hollow  glens  ; 

The  wild  beasts  slumber  in  their  dens  ; 

The  cattle  on  the  hill.     Deep  in  the  sea, 

The  countless  finny  race  and  monster  brood 

Tranquil  repose.     Even  the  busy  bee 

Forgets  her  daily  toil.     The  silent  wood 

No  more  with  noisy  hum  of  insect  rings  ; 

And  all  the  feather'd  tribes,  by  gentle  sleep  subdued, 

Roost  in  the  glade,  and  hang  their  drooping  wings. 

'  Frg.  XXIII.  ^  Frg.  x. 

^  ApoU.  Rh.,  Virgil,  Tasso,  ap.  Welck.  ad  Joe.  A  beautiful  pecu- 
liarity of  this  beautiful  description  is  the  vivid  manner  in  which  it 
shadows  forth  the  scenery  of  the  vale  of  Lacedgemon,  with  which  the 
inspirations  of  the  poet  were  so  intimately  associated,  from  the  snow- 
capped peaks  of  Tajgetus,  down  to  the  dark  blue  sea  which  washes  the 
base  of  the  mountain.  The  author  would  find  it  difficult  to  convey 
to  the  imagination  of  the  reader  the  effect  produced  on  his  own  by  the 
recurrence  of  the  passage  to  his  mind  during  a  walk  among  the  ruins 
of  Sparta,  on  a  calm  spring  night,  about  an  hour  after  a  brilliant  sunset. 


Ch.  IV.  §4.  ALCMAN.      670— 610  B.C.  207 

Nowhere  however  in  liis  remains,  even  in  the  frag- 
ments of  his  hymns  to  the  gods,  is  there  any  distinct 
trace  of  that  loftiness  of  style  which  distinguishes  the 
nobler  productions  of  the  Dorian  Muse  ;  no  high  tone 
of  devotional  fervour  or  moral  feeling.  Even  his 
amatory  effusions  are  rather  of  the  sentimental  and 
complimentary  than  the  impassioned  order.  Nor  does 
a  vestige  of  camp  song  or  war  march  appear  in  the 
collection,  although  later  superficial  grammarians  ^, 
in  the  face  of  the  notorious  priority  of  Tyrta^us  in 
this  department,  ascribe  to  Alcman  the  invention  of 
the  anapajstic  embaterion,  or  battle  psean.  The 
peculiar  title  of  Diving  or  Tumbling  songs  ^,  given 
by  the  antients  to  a  portion  of  his  compositions, 
would  indicate  them  to  have  been  of  a  grotesque  or 
ludicrous  tendency ;  destined,  possibly,  as  accom- 
paniments of  the  rustic  mimes  and  Satyr  dances 
popular  among  the  Lacedaemonians  during  this  early 
period. 

Among  the  graver  mythical  subjects  treated  by 
Alcman,  for  the  most  part  incidentally  it  may  be 
presumed,  were  the  siege  and  sack  of  Athens,  and 
capture  of  ^thra  mother  of  Theseus,  by  the  Dio- 
scuri.^ These  adventures  were  described  in  a  hymn 
addressed  to  the  twin  deities.  Alcman  differed  from 
Homer,  in  representing  Circe  as  herself  stopping  the 
ears  of  the  mariners  of  Ulysses  ^,  instead  of  merely 
instructing  the  hero  to  take  that  precaution ;  and  in 
assigning  ten,  instead  of  twelve  children  to  Niobe.^ 
Among  other  innovations  on  the  older  fable,  he  de- 
scribed the  ]\[uses  as  female  Titans  ^,   daughters  of 

'  Ap.  Welck.  p.  12. 

2  KoAv^uiSaSo-ets ;  Suid.  et  Eudoc.  v.  'AKk/j..  ;  conf.  Welck.  p.  8.  sqq. 

*  Frg.  III.  sqq.  ;  conf.  Welck.  ad  loc.  ■*  Frg.  li. 

^  Frg.  Liv.  *  Frg.  ix. 


208  BIOGRArHY    OF    LYRIC    POETS.  Boor  IIT. 

Uranus  jind  Terra.  Fortune  (Tyche),  a  deity  un- 
known to  Homer,  was,  in  a  more  ethic  spirit  of 
allegory,  made  daughter  of  Promethia  (Prudentia), 
and  sister  of  Eunomia  (good  government  ^).  The 
stone  of  Tantalus  was  explained,  not  as  a  real  object 
of  Tartarean  terror,  but  as  a  morbid  delusion  in  the 
condemned  hero's  mind  - ;  and  the  Greco-Pelaso-ic 
origin  of  the  Hellenic  race  was  figured  by  their  descent 
from  a  mythical  race  of  matrons  called  Gra^ces.^ 

Consistently  with  Alcman's  accredited  extension 
of  the  system  of  strophic  or  choral  arrangement,  the 
more  elementary  rhythmical  combinations,  on  which 
the  varieties  of  that  system  are  founded,  appear  in 
greater  number  in  his  remains  than  can  be  discovered 
in  the  works  of  any  previous  poet.  He  supplies 
consequently  several  additions  to  the  stock  of  Archi- 
lochus,  especially  in  the  dactylic  and  Cretic  branches, 
and  in  their  different  modifications,  the  choriambic, 
Ionic,  and  pasonic.^  Although  Alcman  has  the  credit 
of  imparting  the  graces  of  poetical  diction  to  the  ruder 
forms  of  the  Laconian  dialect,  his  use  of  that  idiom 
seems  to  have  been  chiefly  confined  to  compositions 
of  a  more  familiar  character.  The  more  classical  of 
his  extant  passages  are  partly  in  the  primitive  epic 
dialect,  especially  where  dactylic  forms  prevail ;  partly 
in  the  tEoIIc,  or  in  a  medium  between  the  two.  Even 
in  more  homely  subjects,  his  idiom  can  rarely  if  ever 
be  considered  as  pure  Laconian.  Like  other  poets, 
he  availed  himself  of  the  ordinary  privilege  of  Greek 
art,  to  select  from  the  common  stock  of  poetical  usage 
the  forms  best  adapted  to  the  subject  of  each  work. 

'  Frg.  xLv.  2  Frg.  Lni. 

^  Frg.  xciii.  *  Welck.  Praef.  ad  Fragni.  p.  12.  sqq. 


Ch.  IV.  §5.  ARION.       G25-G10B.C.  209 


ARION.     62o— 610  B.  C. 
5.  A   large  share    of  attention  has  already  been  Arion  and 

■,1  ,  ,  .  .  .  ■■  .  his  dolphin, 

allotted  to  this  poet  m  a  previous  chapter,  in  con- 
nexion with  the  ditliyrainbic  chorus,  around  wliich 
his  celebrity,  as  a  promoter  or  improver  of  national 
art, .  was  mainly  concentrated.  A  few  remarks  still 
remain  due  to  the  details  of  his  personal  history, 
and  to  tlie  merits  of  his  poetical  style,  as  repre- 
sented by  the  single  composition  transmitted  under 
his  name, 

Arion  was  a  native  of  Methymna  in  the  isle  of  Les- 
bos, and  a  disciple,  therefore,  of  the  same  ^oliaii 
school  which  produced  so  many  other  illustrious 
poets-  of  the  melic  order.  His  talents,  as  we  have 
already  seen  ^,  were  more  celebrated  as  exercised  in 
the  musical  and  orchestic  than  in  the  poetical  depart- 
ment of  his  art.  His  age  has  not  been  very  exactly 
recorded.  He  is  described,  however,  as  a  pupil  of 
Alcman^  (670 — 611  B.C.)  ;  and  the  chief  scene  of  his 
professional  activity  was  Corinth,  during  the  reign 
of  Periander,  which  commenced  in  625  b.  c.  The 
date  assigned  to  his  maritime  adventure  described  in 
the  sequel,  is  610  b.  c,  the  year  before  the  death  of 
his  accredited  master  Alcman.  His  own  flourishing 
period  may  hence  be  placed  in  part  between  625  and 
610  B.  c.^  The  name  Cycleus,  or  Cyclon,  familiarly 
ascribed  to  his  father  ■*,  seems  an  evident  figure  of  the 
fame  derived  by  the  son  from  his  invention  of  the 
"  Cyclic  "  chorus.  Of  his  early  career  nothing  fur- 
ther is  recorded  than  that  he  selected  Corinth  as 
his  principal  scene  of  activity,  where  he  enjoyed  the 

^  Supra,  p.  78.  sqq.  ^  Suid.  v.  'Aptoji^. 

3  Clint.  Fast.  Hell.  vol.  i.  p.  211.  217.  *  Suid.  v.  'Ap'^y. 

VOL.  III.  r 


210  BIOGRAPHY    OF    LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

patronage  and  friendship  of  its  celebrated  ruler  above 
mentioned. 

The  remarkable  adventure  of  which  he  afterwards 
became  the  hero,  while  indebted  probably  for  much 
of  the  romantic  detail  with  which  popular  tradition 
has  invested  it  to  his  celebrity  as  an  artist,  has,  in 
its  turn,  contributed  nearly  as  much  to  his  posthu- 
mous fame,  as  the  brilliancy  of  his  musical  compo- 
sitions. It  has  been  narrated  under  its  liveliest  and 
most  attractive  features  by  Herodotus,  and  cannot 
consequently  be  presented  to  the  reader  in  a  more 
concise,  simple,  and  agreeable  form  than  in  the  lan- 
ffuase  of  that  author  :  ^ 

"  During  the  reign  of  Periander  a  very  extraordinary  event 
occurred,  the  transport  of  Arion  the  Methymncean  to  Cape  Tae- 
narus  by  a  dolphin.  This  Arion,  the  most  distinguished  harp- 
player  of  his  age,  and  the  first  who  to  our  knowledge  composed 
and  represented  the  dithyramb  in  Corinth,  is  said,  after  a  long 
residence  at  the  coux't  of  Periander,  to  have  conceived  a  desire  to 
visit  Italy  and  Sicily.  Having  acquired  much  wealth  in  those 
regions  by  the  exercise  of  his  art,  he  resolved  again  to  return  to 
Corinth,  and,  reposing  great  confidence  in  the  mariners  of  that 
city,  embarked  on  board  a  Corinthian  vessel.  The  crew  how- 
ever conspired  on  the  voyage  to  cast  him  into  the  sea,  and  take 
possession  of  his  treasure.  On  being  apprised  of  their  design,  he 
entreated  them  to  spare  his  life,  and  to  content  themselves  with 
his  goods,  the  whole  of  which  he  would  freely  abandon  to  them. 
But  they  would  not  listen  to  him,  and  ordered  him  either  to  dis- 
patch himself  with  his  own  hand,  promising  him  a  decent  inter- 
ment on  shore,  or  to  throw  himself  into  the  sea.  Seeing  no  hope 
of  prevailing  with  them,  he  besought  them  at  least  to  allow  him, 
adorning  himself  with  the  insignia  of  his  art,  to  sing  his  own  funeral 
dirge,  and  promised  that  at  its  close  he  would  fulfil  their  com- 
mand. To  this  they  agreed,  fascinated  by  the  thought  of  hearing 
such  a  performance  by  the  most  illustrious  musician  of  the  age,  and 

1  Herodot.  i.  xxiii.  sq. ;  conf.  Die  Chrj^s.  vol.  ii.  p.  102.  Reisk. ;  Pausan. 
III.  XXV.  5. ;  .S^lian.  Hist.  An.  xii.  xlv.  ;  Auctt.  ap.  Plehn.  Lesbiaca,  p. 
166. ;  Welck.  Delph.  des  Arion,  Kleine  Schrift.  vol.  i.  p.  91. 


Ch.  IV.  §  6.  ARION.       G25— GIO  B.C. 


211 


assembled  in  the  centre  of  the  ship  for  the  purpose.  Arraying  him- 
self accordingly  in  his  festive  attire,  he  took  up  his  station  on  the 
prow  with  lyre  in  hand,  and,  after  performing  the  Orthian  nome', 
plunged  into  the  waves.  The  ship  pursued  its  course  to  Corinth  ; 
while  a  dolphin,  as  the  story  is  told,  taking  Arion  on  its  back, 
bore  him  safe  to  Cape  Tajnarus.  On  landing  he  travelled  direct 
to  Corinth,  still  equipped  as  before,  and  on  his  arrival  related  what 
had  befallen  him  to  his  patron.  Periander,  somewhat  incredulous, 
retained  him  in  custody,  keeping  at  the  same  time  a  careful  watch 
on  the  return  of  the  vessel.  On  its  entry  into  port  he  sent  for  the 
mariners,  and  questioned  them  concerning  Arion.  They  replied 
that  the  poet  was  still  in  Italy,  and  that  they  had  left  him  in 
prosperous  circumstances  at  Tarentum.  Upon  this  Periander 
suddenly  brought  him,  dressed  precisely  as  he  was  when  he  leapt 
overboard,  into  their  presence;  when,  terror-struck,  they  confessed 
all  tliat  had  taken  place.  This  adventure  is  related  both  by  the 
Corinthians 2  and  the  Lesbians;  and,  in  a  small  bronze  ofifering 
dedicated  by  the  poet  himself  in  the  sanctuary  of  Neptune  at 
Tasnarus,  he  is  represented  bestriding  a  dolphin." 

6.  That  this  beautiful  fable  is  founded,  to  a  greater  ProbaWe 
or  less  extent,  on  fact,  few  even  of  the  most  fastidious  the'iegend. 
commentators  have  ventured  to  dispute,  whatever 
difference  of  opinion  may  exist  as  to  the  nature  or 
amount  of  such  ingredient  of  reality.  Some  have 
supposed  that  the  poet,  when  thrown  into  the  sea  by 
piratical  mariners,  had  been  j)icked  up  alive  by  a 
vessel  bearing  the  sign  of  a  dolphin.  Others  have 
conjectured  that  a  figure  of  Neptune  riding  on  a 
dolphin  had  been  dedicated  by  Arion  in  the  temple 
of  the  god  at  Taenarus,  as  an  acknowledgement  of 
the  favour  vouchsafed  by  him  to  the  poet  in  his 
maritime  adventures ;  and  that  the  human  portion  of 
the  group  having  been  misrepresented  by  the  priests, 
or   mistaken   by  the  frequenters   of  the   sanctuar}^, 

1  Plutarch  (Conv.  Sept.  Sap.  p.  161.)  calls  it  the  Pythian  nome. 

^  Bianor  (in  Anth.  Pal.  ix,  ep.  308.)  makes  the  dolphin  bear  Arion 
direct  to  Corinth.  Lucian  and  others  (conf.  Welck.  op.  cit.  p.  97.) 
place  the  adventure  in  the  JEgvean  sea. 

p  2 


212  BIOGRAPHY    OF    LYRIC    POETS.  Book  HI. 

for  an  effigy  of  Arion  himself,  had  given  rise  to  the 
fable  of  his  miraculous  preservation  by  the  animal. 
There  can  be  little  doubt  tliat  the  legend,  whatever 
its  own  immediate  import,  is  connected  with  the 
older  fable  of  the  Laconian  hero  Phalanthus  \  who 
led  a  colony  from  Sparta  to  Tarentum,  the  Italian 
port  from  which  Arion  sailed,  and  who  was  similarly 
preserved  by  a  dolphin  when  shipwrecked  near  the 
coast  of  Italy.  There  is  here  tlie  further  coincidence, 
which  can  hardly  be  altogether  fortuitous,  that  a  simi- 
lar legend  is  related  of  Taras,  the  primitive  eponyme 
hero  of  Tarentum  -,  who  is  also  represented  on  the 
coins  of  that  city  bestriding  a  dolphin.  The  dolphin, 
from  its  proverbially  sociable  and  easy  intercourse 
with  mariners,  playing,  as  it  does  habitually,  round 
their  vessels,  and  accompanying  them  on  their  course, 
"vvas  the  popular  type,  not  merely  of  navigation,  but 
especially  of  successful  maritime  enterprise.^  Hence 
the  legends  of  remarkable  persons,  (among  whom  may 
be  numbered,  besides  Taras,  Phalanthus,  and  Arion, 
Telemachus,  Hesiod,  and  others  of  inferior  note,) 
saved  from  death,  or  preserved  when  drowned  from 
a  watery  grave,  by  the  friendly  intervention  of  this 
animal,  were  singularly  pojDular  and  prevalent*  among 
the  Greeks  of  all  ages.  Riding  on  a  dolphin  thus 
became  the  familiar  symbol  of  providential  escape  from 
maritime  disaster.     Another  fabulous  attribute  of  the 

*  Pausan.  x.  xiii.  5. 

*  Pausan.  loc.  cit.,  conf.  x.  x.  4.  ;  Strab.  vi.  p.  279. ;  conf.  Miill.  Dor. 
vol.  ii.  p.  216.  369.  ;  Plehn,  Lesbiaca,  p.  166. 

=  Horn.  Hymn.  Apoll.  Pyth.;  Pind.  Pyth.  iv.  29. ;  Eurip.  Helen.  1474. ; 
conf.  TTelck.  Ueb.  den  Delph.  d.  Arion.  Op.  Misc.  vol.  i.  p.  89. ;  and  the 
author's  Journal  of  a  Tour  in  Greece,  vol.  i.  p.  173. 

*  Of  Hesiod,  supra,  B.  ii.  Ch.  xx.  §  1.  Of  Telemachus,  Plut.  de  Solert. 
Anim.  p.  985. ;  conf.  Archil,  frg.  84.  Lieb.  ;  Phylarch.  ap.  Athen.  xiir. 
p.  606. ;  Paus.  i.  xliv.  11.,  iii.  xxv.  5. ;  Plut.  Conv.  S.  Sap.  p.  162.,  De 
Solert.  Anim.  p.  984. ;  Welck.  op.  cit.  p.  90. 


Ch.  IV.  §6.  ARION.       625— 610  B.C.  213 

animal  was  its  partiality  for  music  and  musicians  ^, 
supplying  an  additional  motive  for  its  employment 
by  Arion  or  his  admirers  in  this  symbolic  capacity, 
should  opportunity  offer  or  circumstances  require. 
Assuming  therefore  that  the  poet  was,  it  matters 
not  how,  providentially  preserved  from  drowning  in 
the  course  of  a  voyage  from  Tarentum,  nothing  could 
be  more  natural  than  for  him  to  shape  his  votiv^e 
offering  to  Neptune  in  the  form  described  by  Hero- 
dotus ;  and  any  more  subtle  interpretations  which 
have  been  hazarded,  as  to  a  misunderstanding  of  the 
real  nature  or  import  of  the  monument  by  posterity, 
or  wilful  deception  by  the  priests  of  the  temple,  be- 
come superfluous  and  hypercritical. 

More  specious,  perhaps,  is  the  objection  founded  Cycieus, 
on  the  text  of  the  inscription  on  the  monument,  as  ArJn." 
quoted  by  later  authors  '^,  where  the  name  Cycieus 
or  Cyclon  occurred  as  that  of  Arion's  father.  This 
name,  it  has  been  urged,  was  a  mere  figurative  title^, 
typifying  the  poet's  celebrity  as  institutor  of  the 
"  Cyclic  "  chorus.  "  It  could  hardly,  therefore,  have 
been  the  invention  of  Arion's  own  day,  still  less 
have  been  inscribed  by  himself,  instead  of  the  real 
name  of  his  parent,  on  a  votive  monument  of  his 
own  dedication."  Upon  this  difficulty  has  chiefly  been 
grounded,  and  with  some  plausibility,  the  hypothesis, 
that  the  figurative  group,  even  if  really  representing 
Arion,  was  not  of  his  own  or  of  contemporary  dedi- 
cation, but  a  forgery  of  the  priests  in  later  times,  as 
a  valuable  addition  to  their  stock  of  curiosities.  The 
sceptical  argument  however  is  here  also  more  spe- 

'  Find.  frjTg.  156,  157.  Boeckli;  Eurip.  Eloctr.  433. 
'  ^Eliaii.  Hist.  An.  xir.  xlv.  ;  Cramer,  Anecd.  Oxon.  vol.  iir.  p.  352. 
^  Conf.  supra,  p.  85.;  Suid.  et  Eud.  v.  'a/xW. 

v  3 


214  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  m. 

cious  than  real.  The  slender  knowledge  we  possess  of 
the  mode  or  circumstances  under  which  such  symbolic 
titles  were  wont  to  be  bestowed,  ouglit  itself  to  render 
us  cautious,  in  any  case,  of  grounding  specific  con- 
clusions on  such  speculative  data.  But  in  fact  there 
can  be  no  doubt,  by  reference  to  other  authenticated 
examples,  that  it  would  have  been  quite  in  conformity 
with  the  Greek  figurative  style  of  those  days,  that 
a  significant  patronymic  of  this  nature  should  not 
only  have  obtained  currency  during  Arion's  own  life- 
time, but  should  have  been  used  by  himself  or  his 
friends  in  a  poetical  dedication.  That  the  figurative 
title  Ligystiades,  or  Ligyastades,  "  Son  of  Complaint," 
was  similarly  applied  to  Mimnermus,  the  "  plaintive 
poet "  by  preeminence,  is  proved  by  its  occurrence  in 
a  still  extant  passage  of  an  elegy  addressed  to  him 
by  his  friend  and  contemporary  Solon. ^  Whether 
that  legislator's  o-wii  patronymic  Execestides,  "  Son 
of  Reform,"  be  more  than  a  typical  indication  of 
his  political  services,  seems  also  very  questionable. 
And  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  the  name  Enipo, 
literally  "Scold,"  under  which  Archilochus  has  himself 
recorded  his  servile  origin  by  the  mother's  side,  is  but 
a  figure  of  his  own  scurrilous  tongue.  The  genuine 
character  both  of  Arion's  monument  and  of  its  in- 
scription, has  received  a  further  curious  confirmation 
by  the  palseographical  discoveries  lately  effected  in 
the  island  of  Thera,  now  Santorini.-  That  island 
Avas  colonised  by  Sparta  at  a  remote  date,  and  the 
worship  of  Neptune  was  transplanted  to  it,  in  a  form 
similar  to  that  which  prevailed  at  Taenarus,  as  an 
emanation    probably   from  the   Laconian   sanctuary. 

'  See  infra,  Ch.  vi.  §  1, 

^  Boeckh,  Ueber  die  von  Prokescli  in  Thera  entd.  Inschr.  Abhandl. 
der  Berlin.  Acad.  1838,  p.  41.  sqq. ;  conf.  Franz,  Elem.  Epigraph,  p.  53. 


Ch.  IV.  §7.  ARION.       625— 610  B.C.  215 

Among  other  very  antient  and  valuable  inscriptions 
lately  discovered  in  Thera,  seemingly  within  the 
sacred  precinct  of  the  god,  is  one  which,  as  restored 
by  its  ingenious  editor^,  contains  the  name  of  Cycleus, 
and,  to  all  appearance,  those  of  Arion  and  his  dolphin. 
It  also  bears  in  its  terms  that  the  monument  to 
which  it  referred,  a  duplicate  probably  or  copy  of 
that  in  the  parent  sanctuary,  was  dedicated  by  the 
poet's  own  brother ;  and  the  style  of  the  letters  has 
been  admitted,  on  the  same  not  very  indulgent  au- 
thority, to  betray  an  antiquity  coeval  with  that  of 
the  dedicator. 

7.  Another  important  question,  as  affecting  both  Arion's 
the  element  of  historical  fact  in  this  legend  and  the  Neptune. 
literary  character  of  Arion,  is  that  concerning  the 
authenticity  of  the  elegant  ode  to  Neptune-  preserved 
by  yElian^,  and  attributed  by  him  to  Arion.  This 
poem  not  only  describes  itself  very  distinctly  in  the 
person  of  its  own  author  as  a  work  of  Arion,  com- 
posed in  commemoration  of  his  delivery  by  dolphins, 
but  makes  the  poet  himself  allude  to  the  circum- 
stances of  that  delivery,  as  corresponding  in  all  es- 
sential respects  with  those  narrated  by  Herodotus. 
He  describes  "  treacherous  men  as  casting  him  from 
"  the  hollow  ship  into  the  purple  sea  ;  and  the  nim- 
*'  bly  bounding  music-loving  dolphins  as  transporting 
"  him  on  their  crested  backs  to  the  Tsenarian  shore 
"  of  the  land  of  Pelops."     Modern  critical  opinion* 

'  Boeckh,  op.  cit.  p.  71.  sqq. 

"^  Ap.  Schneidew.  Delectus  Poesis  Gr^c.  sect.  ii.  p.  258. ;  Bergk, 
Poet.  lyrr.  Grjecc.  p.  566. 

^  Hist.  An.  XII.  45. ;  conf.  Tzetz.  ap.  Cram.  Anecd.  Oxon.  vol.  iii.  p. 
352. 

*  Conf.  Welck.  op.  cit.  p.  93. ;  Miiller,  Hi.st.  of  Gr.  Lit.  vol.  i.  p.  205. ; 
Hermann  ad  Aristot.  Poet.  p.  235.  ;  Loins,  Rhein.  Mus.  1847,  p  58.  ,=(|i(. 

p   4 


216  BIOGRAPHY    OF   LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

has  been  inucli  divided  as  to  the  genuine  character 
of  this  composition.  Objections  have  been  raised, 
partly  on  the  improbability  of  any  poet  having  pro- 
nuiloated  such  a  story  concerning  himself,  partly  on 
the  internal  evidence  of  the  style  of  the  ode,  which  has 
been  pronounced  inconsistent  with  the  age  or  genius 
of  Arion.  To  the  former  objection  the  obvious  answer 
is,  that  it  were  unreasonable,  in  any  such  case,  to 
exact  a  literal  import  from  the  expressions  of  a  popu- 
lar poet.  The  same  indulgence  which  commentators 
claim  in  their  attempts  to  interpret  the  legend  might 
fairly  be  extended  to  Arion's  promulgation  of  it. 
He  would  merely  have  availed  himself  of  the  common 
privilege  of  poets,  to  record,  in  figurative  language, 
an  extraordinary  or  providential  event  of  his  life. 
If  Horace  was  at  liberty  to  represent  Mercury  as 
preserving  him  from  death  by  enveloping  him  in  a 
cloud  on  the  field  of  Philippi,  or  the  protecting  arm 
of  a  Faun  as  warding  off  from  his  head  the  blow  of 
a  falling  tree  in  the  Sabine  mountains,  Arion  was 
surely  as  free  to  figure  his  delivery  from  a  maritime 
disaster  under  the  familiar  symbol  which  would  so 
naturally,  on  many  grounds,  present  itself  to  his  ima- 
gination. It  is  true  however,  that  his  description 
of  himself  in  the  ode,  as  having  been  "  cast  into  the 
sea  by  the  treacherous  mariners,"  can  hardly  with 
any  plausibility  be  interpreted  in  a  sense  seriously 
at  variance  with  its  literal  import.  Admitting  then 
the  genuine  character  of  the  ode,  the  natural  expla- 
nation of  the  fable  would  be,  that  Arion,  having  on 
his  passage  from  Italy  been  plundered  of  his  goods 
by  the  crew  of  the  vessel,  and  then  thrown  overboard, 
turned  adrift  in  a  boat  or  on  a  plank,  or  otherwise 
consigned   to   the   mercy  of  the  waves,   had  saved 


Ch.  IV.  §  8.  ARION.       625— 610  B.C.  217 

himself  by  swimming,  or  had  been  in  some  other  mode 
providentially  delivered  and  transported  to  Pelopon- 
nesus. If  his  first  landing-place  was  the  Taenarian 
sanctuary  of  Neptune,  where  the  fable  of  Taras  was 
already  in  vogue,  the  figure  of  the  dolphin's  miracu- 
lous interposition  could  hardly  fail  to  suggest  itself 
in  any  attempt  to  commemorate  the  adventure,  whe- 
ther in  poetical  form,  or  by  aid  of  the  kindred  art 
of  sculpture. 

The  other  question,  as  to  the  claim  of  the  ode  to 
genuine  origin  on  the  score  of  its  poetical  style, 
affords  a  curious  example  of  the  Avidely  different 
judgements  to  which  critics  of  high  authority  may 
be  led  in  such  matters,  with  precisely  the  same  data 
for  their  guidance.  By  one  commentator^  of  acknow- 
ledged taste  and  judgement,  the  hymn  is  charac- 
terised as  "  distinguished  by  so  fine  a  unity  of  whole, 
so  rich  a  fulness  of  lyric  expression,  and  a  style  of 
embellishment  so  brilliant,  yet  preserving  so  happy  a 
medium  between  superfluity  and  simplicity,  as  to 
entitle  it  to  rank  among  the  most  beautiful  compo- 
sitions of  its  class."  Another  critic  ^  of  equally  high 
credit  contemptuously  describes  it  as  "  copious  in 
words,  but  poor  in  ideas,  and  quite  unworthy  of  such 
a  poet  as  Arion." 

8.  In  order  fairly   to  balance  the  merit  of  these  character 
two  opinions,  it  will  be  proper,  in  the  first  place  to  genuine 
arrive  at  some  definite  understanding  as  to  the  value  ^°''^^* 
of  the  phrase  "  such  a  poet  as  Arion  ;  "  or  in  other 
words,    as   to   the   qualifications   of   this    celebrated 

^  Welck.  Klein.  Schr.  vol.  i.  p.  93. ;  conf.  Ilerm.  ad  Aristot.  Poet, 
p.  235. 

^  O.  Miill.  Hist,  of  Gr.  Lit.  p.  205.  ;  conf.  tlie  more  dogmatical  and 
exaggerated  criticism  of  Lehrs,  Ilhein.  Mas.  1847,  p.  63. 


218  BIOGRAPHY   OF    LYRIC    TOETS.  Book  III. 

author  in  his  capacity  of  poet  or  composer  of  verses, 
apart  from  his  celebrity  as  musician.  That  Arion, 
as  a  poet  in  the  narrower  sense  of  the  term,  was  dis- 
tinguished in  any  great  degree  by  the  higher  attri- 
butes of  genius,  there  is  no  ground  to  believe.  The 
fact  that,  with  the  exception  of  this  apocryphal  ode, 
no  passage  of  his  works  has  been  preserved,  or  so 
much  as  appealed  to  by  any  antient  author,  is  in  itself 
argument  that  comparatively  little  account  was  made 
of  them,  apart  from  the  charm  of  the  musical  and 
dramatic  performances  with  which  they  were  origi- 
nally connected.  Had  his  literary  compositions  been 
distinguished  by  those  higher  poetical  features  which 
characterise  the  muse  of  Archilochus,  Sappho,  or 
Alcasus,  such  neglect  on  the  part  of  the  native  pub- 
lic were  scarcely  conceivable.  Hence,  although  by 
extant  authorities  Arion  is  occasionally  designated 
poet  as  well  as  musician,  it  is  in  the  latter  capacity 
alone  that  he  can  be  said  to  be  celebrated.  Hero- 
dotus describes  him  simply  "  as  the  greatest  musical 
performer  upon  record  ;  "  and  the  same  or  similar 
expressions  are  habitually  applied  to  him  by  others. 
While  this  silence  as  to  any  superior  excellence  of  his 
poems  need  not  necessarily  imply  an  actual  deficiency 
of  merit,  it  goes  far  to  indicate  that  such  merit  as 
they  possessed  was  much  of  that  description  cha- 
racterised by  one  of  the  critics  already  quoted  as 
"  consisting  in  words  rather  than  ideas  ;  "  in  suavity 
and  elegance  of  expression,  and  harmony  of  sound  ; 
in  those  features  namely,  which  adapt  lyric  composi- 
tion to  the  lighter  festive  order  of  musical  performance. 
As  judged  merely  by  this  standard,  the  ode  in  ques- 
tion is  certainly  no  way  unworthy  of  its  accredited 
author's   reputation.      There    are    however,    it    can 


Ch.  n^§8.  ARION.       625-610  B.C.  219 

hardly  be  denied,  both  in  its  style  and  measure, 
traces  of  a  later  more  artificial  period  of  literature 
than  the  age  of  Arion.  The  measure  is  of  that  com- 
paratively lax  and  disjointed  kind  which  the  antient 
critics^  considered  as  a  species  of  lyric  recitative 
or  harmonious  prose,  and  is  widely  at  variance 
therefore  wdth  the  practice  of  either  the  ^olian  or 
Dorian  schools  in  the  age  of  Arion.  It  savours,  at 
the  earliest,  of  the  time  of  Simonides,  whose  Lament 
of  Danae^  is  the  first  ascertained  specimen  of  this 
style  of  composition.  The  expression  and  imagery 
are  also  in  a  strain  of  poetical  rhetoric  more  com- 
patible with  the  muse  of  a  dithyrambic  poet  of  the 
Attic  period  than  with  that  of  Arion.  Apart  from 
these  considerations,  it  were  certainly  not  very  easy 
to  understand  how,  among  so  many  classical  authors 
who  describe,  or  pointedly  allude  to  Arion's  adven- 
ture, JElian  should  have  been  the  first  to  appeal  to 
this  ode  as  an  authority  on  the  subject,  had  his 
predecessors  known  of  its  existence  or  admitted  its 
genuine  character. 

To  revert  however  from  the  apocryphal  to  the 
more  solid  claims  of  Arion  to  poetical  celebrity,  it 
may  further  be  remarked,  that  the  vigorous  talent 
displayed  by  him  in  his  own  proper  style  of  art,  as 
originator  or  ennobler  of  the  lyro-dramatic  order  of 
composition,  furnishes  no  necessary  argument  of  any 
higher  qualifications  as  a  poet  in  the  ordinary  sense. 
A  proficiency  in  such  orchestic  or  pantomimic 
branches  of  art  might  rather  perhaps,  as  a  general 
rule,  be  held  incompatible  with  genius  of  a  superior 
order.  The  more  properly  dramatic  or  mimetic 
portions  of  the  dithyrambic  solemnity,  were  doubtless 

*  Dion.  Hal.  de  Struct.  Orat.  xxvi.  -  Ap.  Dion.  Hal.  loc.  cit. 


220  BIOGRAPHY    OF    LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

ill  a  great  measure  extemporaneous,  and  neither  in- 
tended nor  qualified  to  stand  the  test  of  a  written 
perusal.  Nor  accordingly,  among  the  notices  of 
Arion's  works,  does  mention  occur  of  any  poem  under 
the  general  title  of  Dithyramb.  His  compositions  are 
limited  to  tlie  two  heads  of  ProcEmia  and  Odes  or 
Songs  ;  and  as  the  whole  collection  is  described  by 
the  same  authorities  as  consisting  of  but  two  books, 
it  was  not  probably  copious.  The  Prooemia  were, 
there  can  be  little  doubt,  the  introductory  hymns  or 
preludes  to  the  dithyrambic  performances.  The  other 
head  might  comprehend  productions  of  a  very  mis- 
cellaneous character.  The  title  Orthian  or  Pythian 
nome,  given  by  Herodotus  and  Plutarch  to  the  com- 
position executed  by  Arion  before  committing  him- 
self to  the  waves,  alludes  to  a  musical  rather  than  a 
poetical  performance. 

The  wide-spread  celebrity  of  Arion,  whether  due 
to  his  merits  as  a  musician,  or  to  the  supernatural 
protection  vouchsafed  him  by  the  gods,  cannot  be 
better  evinced,  than  by  the  fact  of  the  group  re- 
presenting him  astride  on  his  dolphin  having  been 
adopted  by  numerous  cities  and  states  as  the  device 
of  their  coined  money.  This  is  a  distinction  rarely 
conferred,  in  any  case,  but  on  divinities,  founders, 
or  illustrious  national  heroes.  Its  extension  to  an 
ordinary  mortal  is  here  the  more  remarkable,  from 
the  absence,  in  several  instances,  of  any  immediate 
bond  of  connexion,  b}^  birth  race  or  otherwise, 
between  the  person  so  honoured  and  the  commu- 
nities by  whom  the  honour  was  conferred.  That 
such  a  compliment  should  have  been  paid  to  Arion 
at  Methyinna  or  Corinth,  localities  closely  identified 
with   his    own    personal    history,  were   nothing   ex- 


Ch.  IV.  §9.  STESICHORUS.       635-554  B.  C.  221 

traordinary.  But  he  possessed  no  such  clainr  on 
Brundusium,  Alisarne,  Pisaurus,  and  other  states^, 
by  whom  the  like  homage  uas  offered  to  his  memory. 
His  statue,  in  the  same  attitude  as  at  T^enarus,  was 
also  dedicated  in  the  Sanctuary  of  the  Muses  at  He- 
licon.^ 


origin. 


STESICHORUS.     635-554  b.c. 

9.  Before  entering  on  the  life  and  works  of  Stesi-  stesichorus. 
chorus^,  attention    may   seem   to   be    demanded   by  ^ice^"^^^" 
another  poet  named  Xanthus,  mentioned  by  several  Locrian 
authorities  as  having  not  only  preceded  Stesichorus 
in  the  cultivation  of  the  branch  of  Ij'ric  art  common 
to  each,  but  as  having  supplied  him  with  a  portion  of 
his  materials.     As,  however,  the  chief  or  only  title  to 
celebrity   on  the  part  of  Xanthus  seems  to  be  this 
connexion  between  him  and  Stesichorus,  the  few  par- 
ticulars transmitted   of  the  life  or   labours    of  the 
former  will  be  more  appropriately  introduced  as  sub- 
sidiary to  the  history  of  his  distinguished  successor 
and  supposed  plagiarist. 

The  birthplace  of  Stesichorus  is  generally  under- 
stood to  have  been  Himera  '^,  a  Greek  colony  on  the 
north  coast   of   Sicil}^,  founded   about   the  xxxiiird 


'  Rasohe,  Lex.  Rei  Num.  vol.  i.  p.  1098.,  vol.  in.  p.  1.S61.;  conf. 
Suppleui.  vol.  I.  p.  1046.  ;  Eckh.  Doctr.  R.N.  vol.  i.  p.  143.  145.,  vol.  ii. 
p.  502. 

-  Pausan.  ix.  xxx.  2. 

'  Conf.  Suid.  v.  Sxrio-ixopos  ;  Klein,  De  vit.  et  script.  Steslchori  ;  Fragui. 
Stesich,  ibid. ;  Schneidewin,  Del.  Poes.  Gr.  p.  325. ;  Bergk,  Poett.  Ijrr. 
p.  634. ;  Wekk.  Stesichorus,  in  Kleine  Schrift.  vol.  i.  p.  148.  sqq.  The 
remains  are  here  quoted  according  to  the  arrangement  of  Klein. 

*  Auctt.  ap.  Welck.  Stesich.  p.  150. 


222  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  III. 

Olympiad,  b.  c.  648.^  This  colony  is  described  as 
having  been  peopled  by  a  mixed  body  of  settlers^, 
comprising  emigrants  from  the  opposite  coast  of  the 
Italian  Locris,  Chalcidians  from  Zancle  on  the  Straits 
afterwards  called  Messana,  and  Syracusan  refugees ; 
the  Locrians  being  of  u;Eolian,  the  Chalcidians  of 
Ionian,  the  Syracusans  of  Dorian  race.  The  poet's 
familiar  title  of  Ilimera^an,  with  the  leading  circum- 
stances of  his  history,  establish  Himera  as  at  least  his 
place  of  residence.  In  some  accounts  however,  he  is 
described  as  a  native  of  Pallantium  in  Arcadia  ^ ;  in 
others,  of  a  town  called  Metaurus.  This  latter  name 
is  connected  by  geographers  with  two  localities :  the 
one  situated  in  the  same  Italo-Locrian  territory  which 
contributed  largely  to  the  Himerasan  settlement  ;  the 
other  is  placed  in  Sicily  ^,  and  described  as  a  Locrian 
colony.  But  the  existence  of  the  Sicilian  town  rests 
on  no  sufficient  authority,  and  both  notices  probably 
refer  to  the  Italo-Locrian  Metaurus.^  These  con- 
flicting accounts  of  the  poet's  nativity  may  be  partially 
explained,  by  the  circumstance  of  the  foundation  of 
Himera  itself  having  taken  place  but  a  few  years  prior 
to  his  own  birth;  or  according  to  some  authorities, 
the  two  events  must  have  been  nearly  simultaneous. 
He  might  thus  have  been  brought  over  an  infant 
by  one  of  the  earlier  colonists ;  and  if  any  doubt 
existed  as  to  his  precise  place  of  nativity,  it  was 
natural  that  each  district  whence  an  influx  of  settlers 
had  taken  place  should,  on  his  subsequently  obtain- 
ing celebrity,  attempt  to  claim  him  as  its  own.^     In 

1  Clint.  Fast.  Hell.  vol.  i.  p.  198.  ^  Thucyd.  vi.  5, 

'   Suid.  V.  Srrja-.  ^   Steph.  Byz.  v.  Ma-ravpos. 

*  Strab.  VI.  p.  256. ;  conf.  Plin.  alios  ap.  Klein.  Fragm.  Stes.  p.  9. 
"  This  explanation,  even  as  applied  to  the  legend  of  his  Arcadian  origin, 
which  stands   altogether  alone  among  the  variety  of  those  connecting 


Ch.  IV.  §f).         STESICHORUS.       635— 554  B.C.  223 

the  more  popular  accounts  a  Locrian  origin  at 
least  is  assigned  him.  His  connexion,  or  that  of  his 
family,  with  the  Italian  Locris  is  further  confirmed 
by  the  name  of  one  of  his  brothers,  Mamertius^,  and 
by  tliat  of  Tisias  which  he  himself  is  said  originally 
to  have  borne.-  The  one  is  evidently  derived  from 
Mamertium,  the  other  from  Tisia,  two  towns' of  the 
Locrian  district.  Of  the  four  or  five^  different 
names,  mythical  or  real,  ascribed  by  different  bio- 
graphers to  his  father,  that  of  Euphemus  is  supported 
by  the  authority  of  Plato.*  Another  was  Euclides, 
in  favour  of  which  might  be  urged,  that  Thucydides 
mentions  a  Euclides  as  one  of  the  founders  of  the 
Himerajan  colony. 

The  birth  of   Stesichorus  may,   on   a   balance  of  Age. 
various  authorities,  be  placed  about  635   B.C.;    liis  from^ 
death  about  554  b.  c.     He   would  thus    have   lived  "*^*^°'^' 
upwards  of  eighty  years.    Lucian  assigns  him  eighty- 
five.^     Aristotle^  however,  backed  by  Philochorus  an 
esteemed  commentator  of  the  poet,  is  said  to  have 
ascribed  to  him  a  much  higher  antiquity,  and  at  the 
same  time  a  father  of  no  less  celebrity  than  Hesiod.^ 
His  mother,  in  the  same  account,  Avas  Clymene,  the 
maiden   whose   imputed   seduction   by  the  Boeotian 
bard  was,  in  the  popular   legend,  the  cause  of  his 

him  with  Locris,  appears  more  natural  and  probable  than  AVelcker's 
proposed  interpretation  of  it  (op.  cit.  p.  160.)  in  a  figurative  sense. 

'   Suid.  V.  STjjo-i'xopos.  ^  Suid.  ibid. ;  conf.  Klein,  op.  cit.  p.  10. 

3  Suid.  V.  2T7)(n'xopos ;  conf.  Klein,  p.  3,  sq.  *  Phaidr.  p.  244. 

^  Klein,  Fragm.  Stesich.  p.  4. ;  Welck.  Stesich.  Kleine  Schrift.  vol.  i. 
p.  149.;  conf.  Clint.  Fast.  Hell.  vol.  i.  p.  217.,  vol.  ii.  p.  5.;  Lucian. 
Macrob.  xxvi. 

.  ^  Procl.  et  Tzetzes,  Prolegg.  in  Hesiod.  ap.  Gaisf.  pp.  7.  15.;  if  indeed 
the  work  of  Aristotle  here  quoted  be  genuine,  which  the  grammarian 
himself  appears  to  doubt. 

'  Procl.  ad  Hesiod.  0pp.  268.;  conf.  Suid.  v.  Sttjo-i'x.  and  supra,  B.  ii. 
Ch.  XX.  §  1. 


laris. 


224  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  IH. 

own  death.  Tliis  account,  taken  by  the  letter,  is  so 
repugnant  to  all  history,  chronology,  or  common 
sense,  and  so  broadly  disproved  by  tlie  internal  data 
of  the  Hinieraian  poet's  works,  as  to  render  it, 
even  if  sanctioned  by  so  high  authority,  unworthy 
of  serious  attention.  Modern  commentators  accord- 
ingly, are  agreed  that,  in  so  far  as  admissible  at  all, 
it  must  be  taken  in  a  fio-urative  sense,  as  indicatino- 
not  a  kindred  of  blood  between  the  two  poets,  but 
a  relation  between  the  schools  of  art  over  which  they 
respectively  presided.  To  the  nature  of  that  relation 
attention  will  be  directed  in  the  sequel. 
His  family.  10.  The  poct's  owu  name,  as  already  stated,  is  re- 
with  I'ha-  ported  to  have  been  originally  Tisias,  but  was  altered 
to  Stesichorus^  in  honour  of  his  choric  improvements, 
possibly  of  his  otS.ce  of  president  of  the  choral  festi- 
vities of  his  native  republic.  The  latter  name  appears 
to  have  remained  hereditary  in  the  family.  A  second 
Stesichorus  of  Himera  is  mentioned,  thouo-h  on  some- 
what  apocryphal  authority,  as  having  visited  Greece 
in  the  Lxxiiird  Olympiad-,  about  seventy  3'ears  af- 
ter the  death  of  his  more  distinguished  predecessor; 
and  a  third  as  having  gained  a  prize  in  a  theatrical 
competition    at    Athens    several    generations    later.^ 

^  Such  changes  are  familiar  in  Greek  literary  history,  as  in  the  cases, 
among  others,  of  Plato  and  Theophrastus,  whose  previous  appellations 
are  reported,  on  apparently  authentic  testimony,  to  have  been  Aristocles 
and  Tyrtamus. 

^  Marm.  Par.  01.  lxxiii.  3. 

3  Marm.  Par.  01.  cii.  3.  These  later  Stesichori,  in  whatever  number 
they  may  have  existed,  or  whatever  their  connexion  with  each  other  or  the 
chief  of  the  family,  are  so  completely  unknown  to  fame,  that  it  is  not  easy 
to  see  how  they  should,  in  any  quarter,  have  been  raised  to  the  dignity  of 
chronological  pivots.  There  can  indeed  be  little  doubt  that  the  first 
Stesichorus  of  the  Parian  chronicler  (to  whose  notices  of  the  early  lyric 
authors,   as  a  general   rule,   very  little  value  attaches)  is  the  original 


I 


I 


Uh.  IV.  §  10.        STESICHORUS.       635— 554  B.C.  225 

Mention  also  occurs  of  two  brothers  of  Stesichorus, 
each  of  whom  enjoyed  his  share  of  the  family  talent 
in  a  different  branch  of  pursuit.  One,  the  Mamertius 
above  noticed,  is  described  as  a  skilful  geometrician  ; 
the  other,  Halianax,  as  a  legislator  or  statesman.^ 
Of  the  poet's  daughters,  their  existence,  or  adven- 
tures, no  information  has  been  transmitted,  but  on 
the  very  questionable  authority  of  the  epistolary 
romance  which  passed  current  with  the  moderns 
up  to  the  time  of  Bentley  as  the  "  Letters  of  Pha- 
laris,"  ^  the  celebrated  tyrant  of  Agrigentum.  The 
genuine  character  of  any  portion  of  this  correspond- 
ence is  now  universally  and  justly  set  aside.  But 
as  Phalaris  and  Stesichorus  appear  to  have  been 
contemporaneous ;  and  as  the  author  of  the  Letters 
would  naturally  be  anxious  to  impart  plausibility  to 
his  fiction,  by  embodying  in  it  the  current  historical 
notices  concerning  two  such  remarkable  personages, 
it  is  not  perhaps  unlikely  that  some  of  the  details  of 
their  joint  biography  which  the  correspondence  sup- 
plies may  be  authentic,  chough  not  entitled  to  rank 
as  such  unless  corroborated  by  better  evidence.  The 
most  important  of  these  details,  on  which  all  or  most 
of  the  others  depend,  is  the  tyrant's  munificent  pa- 
tronage of  the  poet,  in  common  with  other  men  of 
letters  of  the  same  period.  It  would  seem  how- 
ever, by  reference  to  better  authorities,  that  the 
merits  of  Phalaris  as  a  Majcenas  are  fictitious  ^,  or 

Himerasan  poet,  transferred  by  some  strange  blunder  from  the  fifth  to 
the  eighth  decade  of  the  Olympic  era.  Conf.  Klein,  Fragm.  Stesich.  p.  5. 
sq. ;  Welck.  Stesich.  p.  149.  sq  ;  Boeckh,  Corp.  Inscr.  Gr.  vol.  ii.  p.  319. 

*  Suid.  V.  S-njo-i'x. ;  conf.  Eudoc.  p.  385.  Villois. ;  Hipp.  ap.  Trocl.  ad 
Euclid,  ap.  Klein,  p.  14. 

2  Epist.  67.  alibi,  ed.  Boyle. 

'  Bentl.  Opusc.  p.  32.  sqc[.  ed   Lips.  1781. 

VOL.  III.  Q 


22 G  BK^ORAPIIY    OF    LYRIC    TOETS.  Book  III. 

at  least  that  such  relations  as  may  have  subsisted 
between  him  and  Stesichorus  were  of  no  very  friendly 
nature.  The  only  well  attested  record  of  a  part  taken 
by  the  Litter  in  the  political  affairs  of  his  times, 
describes  his  successful  resistance  to  the  insidious 
attempt  of  Phalaris  to  reduce  the  poet's  native  com- 
monwealth Himera  to  subjection.  The  tyrant  by 
his  intrigues,  favoured  by  the  necessities  of  that  re- 
public then  engaged  in  wars  Avith  its  neighbours,  had 
procured  himself  to  be  elected  commander-in-chief  of 
its  forces,  and  subsequently  applied  for  a  body  guard 
in  support  of  his  authority.  From  this  dangerous 
concession  Stesichorus  dissuaded  his  fellow-citizens 
by  a  popular  fable,  ever  since  justly  esteemed  one  of 
the  most  ingenious  of  its  kind,  and  for  the  invention 
of  which  Aristotle  \  by  whom  the  whole  transaction 
has  been  recorded,  gives  him  credit : 

"Ahorse  who  had  hitherto  enjoyed  the  pasturage  of  a  meadow, 
being  disturbed  in  his  possession  by  a  stag,  applied  to  a  man  for 
assistance  in  expelling  the  intruder.  The  man  replied,  that  he 
could  only  serve  him  effectually  if  allowed  to  mount  on  his  back 
and  put  a  bit  in  his  mouth.  To  this  the  horse  agreed ;  but  no 
sooner  was  the  rider  firm  in  his  seat,  tlian  the  horse  discovered, 
too  I'cite,  that  in  avenging  his  cause  against  the  stag  he  was  become 
the  slave  of  the  man.  '  Beware  thei'efore,'  the  poet  continued, 
applying  the  case  to  his  audience,  '  lest,  in  your  anxiety  to  obtain 
the  superiority  over  your  enemies,  you  yourselves  be  reduced  to 
subjection.  The  bit  you  have  already  placed  in  your  mouths 
by  selecting  Phaluris  to  command  your  troops  ;  but  if  you  grant 
him  a  body  guard,  you  will  then  have  allowed  him  to  mount  you, 
and  will  become  his  slaves.'"^ 

Blindness,  11.   Tlic  most  Celebrated  event  in  the  life  of  this 

cantation*"    poct,  Supplying  Certainly   one  of  the  most  interest- 
ing chapters    in  the  literary  mythology  of  Greece, 

1  Rhetor,  n.  20. ;   conf.  Herat.  Epist.  i.  x.  34. 

^  The  s.ime  story   is   told  by   Conon    (Narr.  42.),  concerning  Gelon 
tyrnnt  of  Syracuse,  and  the  Stesichorus  of  01.  73. 


Cii.  IV.  §11.         STESICIIORUS.       635— 554  B.C.  227 

is  the  temporary  blindness  with  which  he  was  vi- 
sited, shortly  after  the  composition  of  his  poem  on 
the  "  Destruction  of  Troy."  This  disaster  was  sup- 
posed to  have  been  inflicted  on  him  by  the  heroine 
Helen,  as  a  punishment  for  the  calumnious  terms  in 
which  he  had  spoken  of  her  in  that  poem  ;  and  the 
restoration  of  his  sight  was  attributed  to  his  public 
recantation  of  the  slander  in  a  subsequent  work.  The 
following  account  of  his  recovery  is  given  by  Conon  ^ 
and  l^ausanias^,  on  the  joint  authority  of  the  Hime- 
rceans  and  Crotoniates : 

"In  the  Euxine  Sea,  near  the  mouth  of  the  Danube,  is  situated 
the  island  called  Leuka,  sacred  to  Achilles,  and  containing  a  temple 
and  image  of  that  hero.  This  island  is  said  to  have  been  first 
visited  by  Leonymiis  of  Croton  ;  who,  being  afflicted  by  a  sore 
wound  in  the  breast,  applied  for  relief  to  the  Delphic  oracle.  He 
had  received  this  wound  in  an  engagement  between  the  Crotoniates 
and  the  Locrians.  It  was  the  custom  of  the  Locrians  in  mar- 
shalling their  line  of  battle  to  leave  an  open  space  in  the  centre, 
which  they  believed  to  be  occupied  and  defended  by  their  national 
hero  Ajax,  son  of  O'ileus.  Leonymus,  in  the  course  of  the  action 
above  alluded  to,  made  an  attempt  to  break  through  this  opening ; 
when  he  was  assaulted  and  beaten  back  by  a  phantom  warrior, 
and  received  a  thrust  in  the  breast  from  the  spear  of  his  mysterious 
adversary.  Unable  to  procure  relief  from  human  surgical  skill, 
he  appealed  to  the  Pytlioness.  Her  advice  was,  that  he  should 
visit  the  temple  of  Acliilles  in  the  sacred  island  of  Leuka,  where 
the  Locrian  Ajax  would  appear  to  him  and  heal  liis  sore.  This 
advice  he  followed.  On  his  return  home  from  his  pilgrimage, 
cured  through  the  agency  pointed  out  by  the  oracle,  he  related, 
among  other  wonders  of  the  sacred  island,  that  lie  had  found 
Helen  there,  living  as  the  spouse  of  Achilles,  and  that  she  had 
ordered  him,  on  revisiting  his  native  country,  to  cross  over  to 
Himera,  and  inform  Stesichorus  that  the  blindness  which  had 
overtaken  him  was  a  punishment  for  his  injurious  treatment  of  her. 
On  receiving  this  communication  the  poet  composed  his  Palinodia, 
or  Recantation,  and  his  sight  was  restored." 

'  Ap.  Phot.  Xarr.  18.  2  „j  ^ix.  11. 


228  BIOGRAPHY    OF   LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

Plato  \  who  like  many  other  distinguished  authors 
dwells  -vvlth  pleasure  on  this  legend,  gives  a  some- 
what difterent  version  of  it,  describing  Stesichorus  as 
having  himself,  by  the  inspiration  of  his  muse,  divined 
the  source  of  his  calamity.  According  to  other  ac- 
counts it  was  disclosed  to  him  in  a  dream.-  The 
story,  stripped  of  its  fabulous  appendages,  may  reduce 
itself  to  a  simple  kernel  of  fact.  An  attack  of  oph- 
thalmia shortly  after  the  composition  of  the  work  in 
which  the  heroine  was  maligned,  would  easily  lead 
a  lively  poetical  imagination  to  combine  the  two  cir- 
cumstances in  the  relation  of  cause  and  effect.  This 
was  the  more  natural,  from  Stesichorus  having,  in 
the  unfavourable  points  of  the  history  of  Helen,  de- 
ferred to  the  authority  of  Homer;  whose  proverbial 
blindness  he  might  naturally  connect,  as  Plato  ^  him- 
self and  other  authorities  very  pointedly  do,  with 
the  same  cause  to  which  he  had  been  led  to  attribute 
his  own.  A  dream,  a  vow  of  redress,  a  recantation, 
and  subsequent  recovery  of  sight,  would  suffice  to 
impress  a  conviction  of  preternatural  interference  on 
a  superstitious  mind.  Some  such  basis  of  fact,  to- 
gether with  his  own  actual  belief  in  the  reality  of 
the  interposition,  is  implied  by  the  tenor  of  an  extant 
passage  ^  of  his  works. 
Migration  12.  Towards  the  close  of  his  life  Stesichorus  is 
DelttTand  ^^^^  ^^  havc  emigrated  from  Himera,  driven  probably 
tomb.  ijy  lY^Q  political  emergencies  of  the  times,  to  the  kin- 

dred Chalcidian  city  of  Catana  on  tlie  opposite  coast 

'  Phffidr.  p.  243. ;  conf.  Isocrat,  Helen. ;  alios  ap.  Klein.  Fragm. 
Stesich.  p.  21.  sqq. 

*   Suid.  e'l  cveipov. 

^  Loc.  cit. ;  conf.  Vit.  Horn.  Matrit.  p.  233.,  where  Homer's  blindness 
is  distinctly  attributed  to  the  anger  of  Helen. 

■*  Frsj.  XLiv. 


Cii.  IV.  §  12.        STESICUOIIUS.       635-554  B.C.  229 

of  the  island,  where  he  diecl.^  Mention  occurs  of  the 
murder  of  Stesichorus,  "  the  citharoedic  poet,"  by  a 
robber  named  Icanus.^  But  the  notice,  even  if  authen- 
tic, leaves  it  doubtful  whether  reference  be  made  to  the 
elder  Stesichorus,  or  to  one  of  the  subsequent  poets  of 
the  name.  A  sumptuous  monument  was  erected  in 
his  honour  at  one  of  the  gates  of  Catana,  hence  called 
the  Stesichorean  gate.^  The  structure  is  described 
as  octangular,  supported  by  eight  columns  and  raised 
upon  eight  steps.  From  this  peculiarity  some  de- 
rived the  popular  Greek  proverb,  "  all  of  eight," 
expressive  of  uniformity  or  symmetry.  Hence  also 
a  cast  of  the  dice  in  which  the  number  eight  came 
up,  is  said  to  have  been  called  the  "  cast  of  Stesi- 
chorus." ''  Several  authors,  alluding  to  this  proverb, 
describe  the  tomb  as  situated  at  Himera  ^ ;  but  the 
claims  of  Catana  to  possess  the  remains  of  the  poet 
are  preferable.  His  memory  however  was  highly 
cherished  in  his  native  town,  where  a  fine  bronze 
statue  of  him  is  described  hy  Cicero  as  still  extant 
in  his  time.^ 

Of  the  personal  character  of  Stesichorus,  the  com-  Personal 
paratively  slender  criteria  supplied  by  the  more  au- 
thentic notices  of  his  life,  or  by  the  internal  evidence 
of  his  remains,  afford  a  favourable  estimate.  His 
successful  opposition  to  the  intrigues  of  Phalaris 
exhibits  him  in  a  creditable  light,  both  as  a  patriot 

^  Suid.  vv.  STijtn'xopoy  et  navTa  oktw  ;  Antip.  in  Anthol.  Palat.  \u.  75.  ; 
Phalar.  Epist.  54. 

■    Suid.  V.  eViTTjoeu/^a. 

^  Suid.  V.  Sttjo-.  et  wdvTa  oktw^  alibi ;  Antip.  sup.  cit. 

*  Pollux,  IX.  100.     Foi'  other  more  subtle,  not  perhaps  more  probalile 
interpretations,  see  AVelcker,  p.  170. 

^  Eustath.  ad  II.  p.  1"289.;  Pollux,  loc.  cIt. ;  conf.  Klein,  p.  27. ;  Bentl. 
Opusc.  Diss.  XV.  p.  30.  ed.  Lips, 

'^  In  Vorr.  ii.  xxxv. 

a  3 


Inventive 


230  BIOGRAPHY    OF    LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

and  a  statesman  ;  while  the  ingenious  allegory  with 
which  he  seasoned  his  counsel,  displays  the  lively  ima- 
gination of  the  poet  united  to  the  sound  judgement 
of  the  practical  pliilosopher.  The  affair  of  the  Pali- 
nodia,  on  the  other  hand,  savours  more  of  the  former 
than  the  latter  quality.  The  general  spirit  of  his 
works,  whether  in  the  selection  of  his  subjects  or  in 
their  mode  of  treatment,  is  marked  by  dignity  and  de- 
licacy of  taste,  and,  upon  the  whole,  by  a  higher  tone 
of  morality  than  is  common  with  his  brother  poets  of 
the  lyric  school ;  but  the  characteristic  absence  from 
his  compositions,  of  that  personal  or  local  individuality 
which  forms  the  prevailing  feature  of  their  style,  ren- 
ders his  text  proportionally  barren  of  data  for  judging 
as  to  the  nicer  shades  of  his  own  temper  or  disposition. 
13.  The  influence  ascribed  to  Stesichorus  in  ma- 
genius.        turinof  or  perfectins:  the  antistrophic  order  of  choral 

Lyro-epic  o  i  a  ... 

style.  performance,  has  already  been  considered  in  treating 

of  the  general  progress  of  the  lyric  art.  In  another 
respect  he  ranks  as  the  most  distinguished  master, 
if  not  the  actual  originator,  of  a  new  style  of  poetical 
composition.  Among  the  more  prominent  features 
of  distinction  between  the  lyric  and  the  epic  schools 
of  Greek  poetry,  a  distinction  already  frequently 
noticed  and  illustrated  in  these  pages,  are  the  prefer- 
ence in  the  former  of  subjects  of  local  or  contem- 
porary, rather  than  mythical  or  heroic  interest,  and 
their  treatment  in  a  descriptive  or  illustrative,  rather 
than  a  narrative  style.  In  the  works  of  Stesichorus 
this  distinction  entirely  disappears.  The  more  essen- 
tial characteristics  of  epic  composition  are  there  found 
enorafted  on  lyric  forms.  The  subjects  of  all  or 
most  of  his  principal  poems  are  derived  from  the  old 
ideal  mythology,  from  the  events  and  exploits  of  the 


Ch.  IV.  §13.         STESICHOltUS.       635— 554  B.C.  231 

heroic  age ;  from  the  same  mythical  sources  in  fact, 
which  supplied  the  Epic  Muse  with  her  favourite 
materials,  and  are  treated  in  the  same  narrative 
mode  as  in  the  page  of  Homer  and  Hesiod.  Still 
however,  the  metrical  style  of  Stesichorus  was  so 
essentially  lyric,  that  even  amid  a  marked  preference 
for  dactylic  forms,  his  remains  afford  no  trace  what- 
ever of  a  continuous  series  of  hexameter  or  elegiac 
verses. 

This  peculiarity  of  his  style  is  much  dwelt  on  by 
antient  critics,  and  has  been  elegantly  described  by 
Quintilian  ^  as  "  sustaining  with  the  lyre  the  burthen 
of  the  epic  minstrelsy."  It  helps  also  to  explain  the 
fable  which  made  Stesichorus  a  son  of  Hesiod.  The 
epic  element  of  the  Himera}an  poet's  art  stood  obvi- 
ously in  a  nearer  relation  to  the  Hesiodic  than  to  the 
Homeric  school  of  poetry.  An  ode  or  choral  song, 
to  whatever  extent  it  may  have  partaken  of  the  epic 
character,  could  never,  without  an  entire  forfeiture 
of  its  lyric  character,  admit  of  the  wide  extent  or 
elaborate  structure  of  the  Homeric  epopee.  The 
subject  of  such  an  ode  must  have  been  either  in  itself 
comparatively  limited,  or  have  been  treated  in  a 
limited  or  condensed  form.  But  this  comparative 
brevity  is  the  characteristic  of  the  Hesiodic,  as  con- 
trasted with  the  Homeric  or  Cyclic  school  of  heroic 
composition.  The  seat  of  the  former  school  was, 
as  we  have  already  seen  ^,  Central  Greece ;  Boeotia, 
with  the  neighbouring  districts  of  Phocis  and  Locris. 
The  prevalence  and  popularity  of  the  Hesiodic  poetry 
in  the  latter  district  are  sufficiently  proved  by  the 
tradition  of  Hcsiod's  death  within  its  bounds,  and 
of   his  burial  in  the  sacred  soil  of  one  of  its   most 

1  X.  i.  62.  2  Cf.jjj;  }^    „^  (^;1j    XX.  §  1. 

Q  4 


232  BIOGRAl'lIY    OF    LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

distinguislied  sanctuaries.  But  Stesichorus  himself 
was  of  Locrian  origin,  or  at  least  was  proudly 
claimed  as  such  by  the  Italo-Locrian  colonies.  In  any 
attempt,  therefore,  to  connect  his  epic  genius  with  the 
mother  country  by  the  popular  forms  of  figurative 
genealogy,  both  his  Locrian  blood  and  his  poetical 
style  could  hardly  fail  to  point  out  Hesiod,  and  Hesiod's 
Locrian  mistress  Clymene,  as  his  most  appropriate 
ancestors.^  How  so  immediate  a  relation  as  that  of 
father  and  son  should,  in  complete  repugnance  to  the 
received  chronology,  have  been  preferred  to  the  more 
remote  bond  of  patriarchal  kindred  usual  in  such 
cases,  is  not  so  easily  explained. 
Priority  of  14.  Admitting,  however,  the  claim  of  Stesichorus  to 
fn.rilir  vnT^^  as  the  earliest  author  of  any  high  celebrity  in  the 
oiestia.  Jyro-epic  stylc  of  composition,  it  would  yet  appear 
that  the  origin  and  first  cultivation  of  that  style  are 
to  be  sought  in  a  still  earlier  source.  There  is  in- 
deed reason  to  believe  that  the  Himera^an  poet  was 
not  only  a  successor,  but  a  plagiarist  or  imitator  of 
a  more  antient  author  in  the  same  style,  the  Xanthus 

•  The  Locrian  origin  of  Stesichorus  forms  a  very  palpable  ingredient 
in  the  legend  of  his  blindness  and  Pulinodia.  A  Crotoniate  warrior, 
suffering  from  a  Locrian  -wound  inflicted  by  the  Locrian  Ajax,  is  sent 
to  Leuca  to  be  healed  by  the  iame  Locrian  hero  ;  and  on  his  return 
home  is  bearer  of  a  message  to  the  Locrian  Stesichorus  (supra,  p.  223.). 
Stesichorus  is  also  said  (frg.  xxiii.)  to  have  copied  Ilesiod  in  writing 
the  name  of  the  national  Locrian  hero's  father  promiscuously,  Oileus 
and  Ileus.  (Eustath.  ad  Horn.  p.  277.  1018.)  Pindar  too  (01.  x.  19.), 
in  the  marked  compliment  paid  by  him  to  the  lustre  of  the  Epic  Muse 
of  the  Epizephyrian  Locris,  in  connexion  with  the  adventure  between 
Hercules  and  the  Locrian  hero  Cycnus  celebrated  by  both  Hesiod  and 
Stesichorus,  may  be  presumed  to  have  had  in  view  the  Locrian  kindred 
of  the  two  poets.  "Welcker  (Stes.  p.  154.)  has  pointed  out  the  further 
coincidence,  that  Cuma,  the  seat  of  Hesiod's  family,  in  deriving  lier 
])opular  title  of  "  Phriconis  "  from  a  Locrian  mountain,  admitted  the 
sh;ire  taken  by  Locrians  in  her  original  colonisation. 


Cii.  IV.  §  14.        STESICHORUS.       635— 554  B.C.  233 

already  alluded  to.  One  of  the  most  remarkable 
works  of  the  former  poet,  his  Orestia,  is  stated  on 
good  authority  to  have  been  modelled  in  a  great  de- 
gree, both  in  regard  to  its  plan  and  treatment,  on 
a  similar  poem  under  the  same  title  by  Xanthus.^ 
That  Stesichorus  however  was  neither  a  treacherous 
nor  an  ungenerous  plagiarist,  and  as  little  ashamed  of 
the  obligations  under  which  he  lay  to  his  predecessor 
as  disposed  to  suppress  them,  is  evinced  by  his  having 
himself  appealed  to  him  by  name  as  a  prior  autho- 
rity.^ The  birthplace  of  Xanthus  has  not  been  re- 
corded. Of  his  age  the  only  specific  notice  is  that 
Avhich  asserts  his  priority  to  Stesichorus.  It  has  been 
further  conjectured  that  he  must  also  have  preceded 
Pisander,  having,  as  Stesichorus  himself  recorded  of 
him  ^,  represented  Hercules  after  the  old  Homeric 
fashion,  armed  with  bow  and  arrows,  instead  of  club 
and  lion's  hide  according  to  the  later  innovation,  of 
which  Pisander  was  the  reputed  author  and  which 
was  adopted  by  Stesichorus.  This  is  not  certainlv  a 
very  conclusive  argument  of  the  antiquity  of  Xanthus. 
That  poet  was  distinguished,  as  appears  from  other 
evidence,  for  a  respectful  deference  to  Homer  as  his 
text-book  of  heroic  tradition  ;  and  there  is  no  reason 
to  suppose  he  would  more  readily  desert  this  standard 
authority  in  favour  of  Pisander  than  of  any  other  in- 
novator. Of  his  respect  for  Homer's  tradition  anotlier 
example  has  been  transmitted.  The  daughters  of 
Agamemnon  are  described  by  their  father  in  the  Iliad 
as  but  three  in  number,  Chrysothemis,  Laodice,  and 
Iphianassa,  to  the  exclusion  of  Electra  so  celebrated 
in  later  fable.     Xanthus,  in  his  Orestia,  in  order  to 

1  Athen.  xii.  p.  513  A.  ;  conf,  Klein,  Fnigm.  Stes.  p.  83. 

=  Frg.  Lxii.  3  Ap.  Athen.  xii.  p.  512.  srj. 


234 


BIOGKAPIIY    OF    LYIUG    TOETS. 


Booit  nr. 


Homeric 
properties 
of  the  style 
of  Stesi- 
chorus. 


uphold  Homer's  authority,  without  too  rudely  setting 
aside  the  current  tradition  of  his  own  day,  identified 
Electra  with  Laodice  by  a  slight  variation  of  the 
former  title  into  Alcctra,  as  a  significant  surname 
subsequently  conferred  on  the  heroine,  in  allusion  to 
the  celibacy  to  which  she  had  been  condemned  by 
her  mother  and  /Egisthus.^  The  Orestia  is  the  only 
poem  of  Xanthus  the  title  of  which  has  been  recorded. 
No  remains  of  liis  works  have  been  preserved. 

15.  But,  although  Stesichorus  may  not  have  been 
the  originator  of  this  order  of  composition,  he  appears 
to  have  been  the  only  author  of  any  celebrity  by 
whom  it  was  cultivated.  Even  among  those  lyric 
poets  who,  like  himself,  aimed  at  a  loftier  range  of 
heroic  subject  and  style,  no  actual  parallel  can  be 
found.  The  nearest  extant  approach  to  one  appears 
in  the  odes  of  Pindar,  many  of  whose  encomia  on 
illustrious  mortals,  or  hymns  in  praise  of  the  gods, 
contain  a  large  amount  of  epic  matei'ial.  Still,  how- 
ever, such  passages  are  introduced  but  as  episode  or 
digression.  The  epic  remains  subservient  to  the 
lyric  element,  the  narrative  to  the  song  or  ode.  With 
Stesichorus  each  composition  was,  in  regard  to  its 
main  subject,  substantially  an  epic  poem  embodied  in 
the  choral  forms  proper  to  the  higher  walks  of  lyric 
poetry.  Several  of  his  odes  celebrated  the  same  ad- 
ventures which  formed  the  subject  of  distinguished 
poems  of  the  Homeric  school,  and  under  titles  com- 
mon also  to  those  poems.  Such  were  his  Ilii-Persis,  or 
Destruction  of  Troy,  and  his  Nosti,  or  Keturn  of  the 
Greeks.  A  certain  slight  analogy  might  also  per- 
haps be  traced  between  the  Stesichorean  ode  and  the 

'  ^lian.  Yar.  Hist.  iv.  xxvi. 


Cn.  IV.  §  15.        STESICHORUS.       635— 5o4  B.C.  235 

narrative  portion  of  the  dithyramb  of  Arion,  Avhere 
the  exploits  and  adventures  of  the  god  Dionysus  were 
the  subject  of  a  mixed  epico-lyric  celebration.  The 
difference  however  in  the  general  spirit  of  the  dithy- 
ramb, its  essentially  mimetic  character,  the  extant  to 
which  its  epic  element  was  absorbed  by  its  dramatic 
and  orchestic  accompaniments,  with  the  purely  reli- 
gious tendency  of  tlie  whole  ceremonial,  preclude  any 
attempt  to  establish,  even  collaterally,  a  connexion 
between  the  two  orders  of  composition. 

From  what  has  been  said  it  seems  evident  that 
Stesichorus  was  by  nature  formed  to  excel  as  an  epic 
rather  than  a  lyric  poet ;  and  that,  had  he  flourished 
at  an  earlier  period,  he  would  have  been  a  zealous 
and  probably  a  successful  cultivator  of  the  regular 
heroic  style.  He  had  however  the  discrimination 
to  perceive,  that  from  the  influence  of  circumstances 
over  which  he  had  no  control,  that  style  now  pre- 
sented but  a  barren  and  exhausted  field  for  poetical 
enterprise.  He  preferred  therefore,  by  a  happy 
combination  of  the  new  and  old  departments  of  art, 
establishing  his  own  claims  to  celebrity  on  a  more 
solid  and  hitherto  unoccupied  basis.  To  this  prefer- 
ence of  heroic  subjects  and  epic  treatment  he  was 
indebted,  in  part  at  least  it  may  be  presumed,  for 
the  title  and  honours  which  he  enjoyed  of  "  the  most 
Homeric"  among  the  melic  poets  of  Greece.  "It  is 
the  universal  opinion  of  the  Greek  critics,"  says  Dio 
Chrysostom  \  "  that  Stesichorus  was  a  devoted  dis- 
ciple of  Homer,  and  that  there  is  a  great  resemblance 
between  their  works."  He  is  further  described  by  a 
subtle,    but  not    inappropriate  figure,  as  "  watering 

'  Vol.  II.  p.  284.  Reisk.;  conf.  vol.  i.  p.  83.  81. 


236  BIOGKAPHY    OF   LYKIC    TOETS.  Book  III. 

liis  own  la])ours  with  streams  derived  from  the  foun- 
tains of  Homer  ;"^  and  in  a  still  more  rhetorical 
strain,  the  soul  of  Homer  is  said,  in  the  vicissitudes  of 
metempsychosis,  to  have  animated  the  body  of  Stesi- 
chorus.'-  Commentators  of  high  authority  also  award 
him  the  prouder  distinction,  of  having  successfully 
emulated  his  great  original  in  some  of  the  more  ex- 
cellent attributes  of  his  genius.  Longinus^  classes 
him  with  Archilochus,  Sophocles,  and  Herodotus, 
among  the  few  authors  entitled  to  that  distinction. 
Quintilian^  commends  the  Homeric  spirit  of  his  dia- 
logue, and  his  happy  conception  of  his  heroes'  cha- 
racters. Dionysius^  of  Ilalicarnassus  passes  a  similar 
eulogy  on  this  attribute  of  his  muse,  in  which  he 
pronounces  him  superior  to  Pindar  and  Simonides. 
The  same  critic  dwells  also  on  his  native  ease  and 
unaffected  simplicity  of  style,  equally  remote  from 
turgid  pomp,  prosaic  insipidity,  or  elaborate  artifice,  a 
beauty  which  he  allows  to  so  few  of  Homer's  more  ce- 
lebrated successors  in  common  with  himself.^  Quin- 
tilian''  however  blames  Stesichorus  for  occasional 
diffuseness,  and  in  this  respect  contrasts  him  un- 
favourably with  Homer.  A  more  fastidious  judge  of 
the  latter  poet  might  perhaps  adduce  this  as  another 
trait  of  analogy  between  the  two,  it  being  one  of 
those  points  on  which  Homer  himself  is  occasionally 
open  to  censure.  The  imputed  defect,  as  Ave  learn 
from  other  sources,  consisted  in  the  case  of  Stesi- 
chorus in  an  occasional  superfluity  of  epithets,  while 
liis  elegant  taste  in  their  selection  is  also  commended.^ 

1  Anthol.  Pal.  ix.  184.  "  Antip.  in  Anthol.  Pal.  vii.  75. 

3  De  Subl  xiii.  3.         4  X.  i.  62.         »  De  vett.  Script,  p.  421.  Reisk. 
6  De  comp.  Verb.  xxiv.  ''  Loc.  cit. 

®  Hermog.  de  Form.  Orat.  ii.  p.  409.  Laurent. 


Cii.  IV.  §  IG.        STESICIIOKUS.       635— 554  B.C.  237 

The  criticism  here  again,  under  both  its  heads,  might 
be  extended  to  his  illustrious  predecessor. 

These  comments^  are  all  more  or  less  borne  out  by 
the  remains  of  the  Himeraean  poet.  As  a  general  rule 
his  verse  is  marked  by  a  sonorous  roundness  and  har- 
mony, seldom  rising  to  the  grandeur,  but  in  terms 
of  the  Halicarnassian  commentary  free  from  the  in- 
flation or  obscurity  of  Pindar.  His  text  is  indeed 
remarkable  for  the  flowing  smoothness  and  perspi- 
cuity of  its  structure.  The  parallel  between  him  and 
Homer  is,  however,  less  observable  in  the  matter 
than  the  manner  of  his  composition.  He  exhibits 
in  fact,  in  the  selection  or  working  up  of  his  epic 
materials,  a  frequent  preference  of  versions  of  the 
national  tradition  which,  whether  the  fruit  of  his  OAvn 
imagination  or  derived  from  secondary  epic  sources, 
are  not  only  at  variance  with  those  authorised  by  the 
pure  Homeric  minstrelsy,  but  in  themselves  eccentric 
and  farfetched. 

16.  The  following  are  the  titles,  in  so  far  as  known,  His  works 
of  the  epico-lyric  compositions  of  Stesichorus,  ar-  J^^ahis'/ 
ranged,  as  nearly  as  may  be,  in  the  chronological 
order  of  their  subjects :  Europia,  Geryonis,  Cerberus, 
Cycnus,  Scylla,  Athla  Pelise,  Syothera^,  Erij)hyle,  Ilii- 
Persis,  Palinodia,  Nosti,  Orestia,  Calyce,  Rhadina. 
The  two  last-mentioned  poems,  though  partaking  of 
the  same  epic  character,  belong,  as  will  be  seen,  to  a  less 
purely  heroic  head  of  celebration  than  the  remainder. 

The  title  Europia  here,  as  in  the  Cyclic  poem  to  Europia. 
which  it  was  common,  indicates  the  subject  of   the 
work  to  have  been  the  settlement  of  the  Cadmean 
colony  in  Boeotia.     It  described  the  sowing  of  the 
dragon's  teeth,  which  was  attributed  to  Minerva,  not 

•  Conf.  alios  ap.  Klein,  pp.  32,  33.  ;  Welck.  Stesicli.  p.  163. 


238  BIOGIIAPIIY    OF    LYHIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

to  Cadmus  as  in  tlie  popular  account.^  The  death  of 
Acta3on  was  also  meiitioned.-  The  very  strange  ver- 
sion of  this  latter  legend  preferred  by  Stesichorus, 
was  by  no  means  an  improvement  on  the  vulgar 
fable,  and  certainly  does  not  tend  to  bear  out  the 
poet's  high  reputation  for  Homeric  dignity  in  the 
treatment  of  his  subject.  The  death  of  the  unfortu- 
nate hunter  was  ascribed,  not  to  the  anger  of  Diana  at 
his  outrage  on  the  sanctity  of  her  virgin  retirement, 
but  to  her  anxiety  to  disembarrass  her  father  Jupiter 
of  a  rival  competitor  for  the  favours  of  Sernele. 
The  expedient  to  which  she  resorted  to  secure  the 
assault  of  the  hero's  dogs  on  his  person,  by  dressing 
him  up  in  a  deer's  skin,  is  also  a  very  poor  conceit/^ 

Gt'oonis.  The  next  four  poems  in  the  list  relate  to  as  many 

more  or  less  familiar  adventures  of  Hercules,  whom 
Stesichorus,  preferring  the  authority  of  Pisander  to 
that  of  Homer,  armed,  not  with  bow  and  arrows, 
but  with  club  and  lion's  skin.^  In  the  Geryonis  he 
also  adopted,  from  the  same  source,  the  not  very 
genial  fable  of  the  aerial  voyage  of  the  son  of  Alcmena, 
under  the  patronage  and  in  the  mystical  drinking- 

cerberus.  goblet  of  the  sun/'  The  Cerberus  treated  of  the 
descent  of  Hercules  to  Hades,  and  his  victory  over 
the  fabulous  monster-guardian  of  the  palace  gates  of 

cycnus.  Pluto.  In  liis  accouut  of  the  hero's  adventure  with 
Cycnus,  the  same  celebrated  in  the  Hesiodic  Shield 
of  Hercules,  Stesichorus,  while  referring  to  the 
legend  of  the  Shield,  and  to  Hesiod  as  author  of 
that  poem,  differed  from  his  reputed  poetical  father 
in  describing  the  Theban  liero  as  flying  from  Cycnus 

^  Frg.  XVI.  sqq.  -  Fi-g.  xvii. 

^  Paus.  IX.  ii.  3. ;  conf.  Apolloil.  iii.  iv.  4. 

*  Frg.  Lxii. ;  conf.  B.  n.  Ch.  xxi.  §  4.  ^  Frg.  x. 


Cii-  IV.  §  IG.        STESICIIORUS.       635— 554  B.  C.  239 

at  their  first  encounter,  on  observing  Mars  arrayed 
as  ally  of  his  opponent.  Hence  the  Greek  proverb, 
"  Two  to  one  are  too  much  even  for  Hercules."  ^  In 
the  sequel,  when  himself  backed  by  Minerva,  the  hero 
engages  the  enemy  with  the  same  result  as  in  the 
Shield.  This  account  of  the  combat,  as  more  credit- 
able to  Cycnus,  may  have  been  preferred  by  Stesichorus 
in  compliment  to  his  Locrian  clansmen  of  the  Epicne- 
midian  territory,  Cycnus  being  a  hero  of  that  district. 
The  same  version  of  the  legend  is  sanctioned  by 
Pindar'-,  in  a  passage  where  he  dwells  in  a  highly 
complimentary  tone  on  the  merits  of  the  Italian 
Locris,  and  which  also  appears  to  contain  an  allusion 
to  the  previous  poem  of  Stesichorus.  The  Scylla^  scyiia. 
recorded,  it  would  appear,  not  the  more  celebrated 
encounter  of  Ulysses  with  the  monster  heroine  whose 
name  the  poem  bears,  but  a  previous  adventure  of 
Hercules,  by  whom  the  same  Scylla,  amid  the  ano- 
malies of  the  popular  mythology,  had  been  slain  ^, 
although  alive  and  in  full  activity  in  the  next  genera- 
tion. The  adventures  of  Ulysses  in  the  Straits  appear 
to  have  been  treated  in  the  N^osti.'^ 

The  Athla  Peliag  was  a  description  of  the  funeral  Athia 
games  in  honour  of  Pelias.      Among  the  heroes  who  ^^''** 
took  part  in  them,  Meleager  and  Amphiaraiis  seem  to 
have  been  chiefly  distinguished. *" 

The  subject  of  the  Syotheras^  is  less  clearly  ascer-  syothera. 
tained.       That  it    described  a   boar   hunt  the   name 
itself  indicates.     But  as  Hercules  and  Meleager  were 

1  ovhe  'HpaK\€7  Trphi  5vo.  Aristid.  vol.  ir.  p.  102.  (172.)  Jebb,  Schol. 
ad  loc.  ;  Archilochus  ap.  Aristid.  loc.  cit. ;  Plato,  Plifedo,  p.  89.  The 
above  citation  of  Archilochus,  if  authentic,  would  imply  this  ver.sion  of 
the  legend  to  be  older  than  the  time  of  Stesichorus. 

-  Find.  01.  XI.  15.  Boeckh,  Schol.  ad  loc.  ^  Klein,  p.  72. 

^  Schol.  ad  Od.  xir.  85.     "^  Frg.  xxxv.     ^  Klein,  p.  54.      ■  Klein,  p.  72 


240  BIOGRAPHY    OF    LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

both  favourite  heroes  of  Stesichorus,  and  as  the  single 
extant  citation  throws  no  light  on  the  details  of  the 
text^  it  becomes  the  less  easy  to  decide  between  the 
claims  of  the  Erymanthian  and  those  of  the  Caly- 
donian  adventure,  the  two  most  celebrated  of  their 
class.  The  plural  form  of  the  title  might  perhaps 
imply  that  both  were  comprehended,  or  that  the 
poem  may  have  treated  generally  of  the  more  famous 
boar  hunts  of  the  heroic  age. 

Kriphyie.  Thc  Eriphylc   derived  its  name   from  the  spouse 

of  Amphiaraiis,  who,  bribed  by  Polynices,  betrayed 
her  husband  into  a  participation  in  the  first  Theban 
war,  in  which  he  was  destined  to  perish.  The  poem 
appears,  from  the  existing  notices  of  its  contents,  to 
have  comprised  a  large  portion  of  the  events  of  the 
■war.  Stesichorus  seems  to  have  been  author  of  a  not 
very  judicious  innovation  on  the  old  Thebaic  legend, 
to  the  effect  that  Capaneus,  and  other  slain  heroes  of 
the  siege,  were  restored  to  life  by  Esculapius.^ 

iiii-rersis.  17.  The  title  of  the  llii-Persis,  or  Destruction  of 
Troy,  sufficiently  explains  the  subject  of  the  poem. 
Of  its  plan  there  exists,  in  addition  to  the  preserved 
notices  of  the  antients,  a  valuable  elucidation  in  the 
extant  piece  of  sculpture  called  the  Iliac  Table.  This 
celebrated  monument,  already  cited  in  treating  of  the 
Cyclic  poems,  represents  in  a  series  of  reliefs  the 
more  important  adventures  of  the  Siege,  according 
to  various  popular  authorities.  As  a  work  of  the 
Roman  period,  it  has  evidently  been  prepared  with 
more  immediate  reference  to  Eoraan  feelings  and 
associations.  Hence,  in  the  portion  of  it  devoted  to 
the  sack  of  the  city,  the  version  of  that  catastrophe 
given  by  Stesichorus  has  been  preferred  (as  is  also 
stated  in  the  inscription  annexed  to  the  relief)  ;  being 

'  Klein,  p.  74.  sq. 


Cii.  IV.  §  17.        STESICHORUS.       G3o— 554B.C.  241 

that  upon  which  were  founded  the  flight  and  subse- 
quent adventures  of  jEneas  as  related  by  Virgil.  The 
existing!:  fra<xments  show  the  narrative  to  have  also 
embraced,  in  the  form  either  of  introduction  or  of 
episode,  a  considerable  portion  of  the  previous  history 
of  Helen,  which  it  seems  to  have  been  a  special  object 
of  Stesichorus,  in  this  poem,  to  represent  in  the  most 
unfavourable  light. 

Venus,  in  revenge  for  a  slight  put  on  her  by  Tyndareus,  in 
excluding  her  from  the  honours  of  a  sacrifice  offered  to  the  rest  of 
the  deities,  pronounced  on  him  the  curse,  that  he  should  be 
the  father  of  incontinent  and  adulterous  daughters. ^  Under  the 
influence  of  this  malediction,  Helen  at  a  very  early  age  became 
the  captive  and  mistress  of  Tiieseus,  to  whom  she  bore  Iphigenia. 
The  child  was  adopted  by  Clyteranestra,  who  passed  it  off  as  her 
own  offspring  by  her  husband  Agamemnon. ^  When  retaken  by 
her  brothers,  the  Dioscuri,  and  restored  to  her  paternal  mansion  at 
Sparta,  Helen  was  courted  by  the  Greek  chiefs  ;  and  a  vow  was 
exacted  by  Tyndareus  from  her  suitors  to  defend  the  rights  of 
the  fortunate  candidate.^  Her  subsequent  marriage  to  Menelaus, 
her  elopement  with  Paris,  and  the  ten  years'  war  for  her  recovery, 
were  related  in  substantially  the  same  form  as  in  the  tradition  of 
Horaer.* 

The  main  narrative  of  the  poem,  as  figured  on  the  relief,  com- 
menced with  the  Wooden  Horse  standing  in  the  Trojan  agora. 
The  Greek  heroes,  to  the  number  of  one  hundred  ^  are  issuing  by 
a  ladder  from  the  side  of  the  colossal  image,  and  dealing  death 
and  devastation  around  them.  Priam  and  Hecuba  take  refuge  at 
the  altar  of  Jupiter  Herceiis,  where  the  old  king  is  slain.  Several 
of  his  sons  lie  prostrate  by  his  aide.  Ajax  Oileu?,  not  far  off,  is 
seen  dragging  Cassandra  from  the  steps  of  the  temple  of  Pallas. 
In  another  direction  Helen,  flying  for  refuge  to  the  sanctuary  of 
Venus,  is  seized  by  the  hair  and  detained  by  Menelaus.  The  Greeks 
are  about  to  stone  her,  as  the  fitting  punishment  of  her  adulteries, 
but  such  is  the  magic  influence  of  her  beauty  that,  as  they  gaze 
on  her,  the  weapons  drop''  powerless  from  their  hands.     Hard  by, 

*  Frg,  i-xxiv.  ^  Frg.  xxi.  ^  Frg.  xx.  •*  Frg.  xx. 

^  Frg.  XXVI.  ^  Frg.  xxvii. 

VOL.  III.  R 


242  BIOGKAPIIY    OF    LYRIC    TOETS.  Eook  III. 

iEtlira  motlicr  of  Theseus,  wlio  had  been  cai)turecl  and  ciishavcd  by 
the  Dioscuri  in  the  rescue  of  Helen  from  that  prince,  and  hacT  since 
acted  as  the  waiting-maid  of  their  sister,  is  recognised  and  led  off 
by  her  two  grandsons.  Below,  JEneas  is  seen  issuing  from  the 
gate  of  the  city  into  the  open  country,  with  Ancliises  on  his  back, 
who  bears  in  his  hands  the  Trojnn  penates.  Mercury  conducts 
^neas  by  one  hand ;  with  the  other  iEneas  leads  Ascanius  ;  Creusa 
follows  behind.  Numbers  of  fugitive  Trojans,  male  and  female, 
assemble  round  the  tomb  of  Hector  without  the  walls  ;  among 
them  are  Hecuba,  Andromache,  Helenus,  and  Polyxena.  Hecuba 
is  preserved  ffom  captivity  through  tlie  interposition  of  Apollo,  by 
whom  she  had  been  beloved  in  her  youth,  and  is  transported  by 
the  god  to  his  Lycian  sanctuary.^  Neoptolemus  sacrifices  Polyxena 
on  the  tomb  of  his  fiTther  Achilles,  in  the  presence  of  Calchas  and 
Ulysses.  Anchises,  iEneas,  and  Ascanius,  but  now  without  Creusa, 
embark,  attended  by  the  pilot  Misenus,  for  Hesperia. 

Amons:  otlier  remarkable  innovations  on  the  old 
ITomeric  tradition  observable  in  tliis  poem,  was  that 
which  described  Hector,  in  the  Iliad  the  favourite 
hero  of  Apollo,  as  the  son  of  that  deity,  offspring  of  an 
illicit  connexion  between  him  and  Hecuba.-  Hence 
too  Hecuba,  instead  of  being  led  away  captive  by 
the  Greeks,  as  in  the  Cyclic  version,  is  here  preserved 
by  her  divine  paramour,  and  transported  safe  to  his 
own  sanctuary  in  Lycia.  The  legend  which  traced 
the  incontinent  habits  of  Helen  and  Clytemnestra  to 
the  wrath  of  Yenus,  seems  to  have  been  common  to 
Hesiod,  the  fabulous  father  of  Stesichorus,^ 
rjincdin.  18.  In  the  Palinodia,  or  "  Kecantation,"  Stesicho- 

rus  retracting,  as  the  title  implies,  under  the  circum- 
stances already  noticed,  the  opprobrious  statements 
promulgated  against  Helen  in  his  former  poem,  gave 
an  entirely  different  version  of  her  life  and  adven- 
tures. Herodotus  "*  reports  the  following  legend  to 
liave  been  current  among  the  Egyptian  priests  in  his 
time,  and  to  have  been  conmiunicated  i^y  them  to  him. 

'  Frg.  XXVIII.  ^  Tig.  XXIX. 

3  Scliol.  Eurlp.  Oi(?>t.  249.  '  n.  113.  sqq. 


Cu.  IV.  §18.        STESICIIOliUS.       635— 554  B.C.  213 

Helen,  according  to  these  authorities,  instead  of  sailino- 
to  Troy  with  Paris,  had,  when  that  hero  touched  on 
their  coast  on  his  voyage  from  Sparta,  been  seized 
and  detained  by  their  king  Proteus.  In  her  place 
a  phantom  was  delivered  to  Paris,  and  enacted 
during  the  whole  period  of  the  war  the  part  of  the 
real  heroine,  who  was  restored  to  Menelaus  when 
he  visited  Egypt  on  his  return  from  the  siege.  This 
far-fetched  and  insipid  fable,  though  more  worthy 
of  an  Egyptian  than  of  a  Hellenic  imagination,  could 
hardly  have  been  of  Egyptian  invention.  It  origi- 
nated probably  in  some  section  of  the  early  epic 
school  of  poetry,  was  introduced  into  Egypt  by  Greek 
settlers,  and  readily  adopted  by  the  native  priesthood, 
with  other  incongruous  blendings  of  Greek  and  Egyp- 
tian fable  tending  to  enlarge  the  credit  of  their  own 
school  of  mythology.  Upon  this  legend  Stesichorus 
so  far  improved,  as  to  deny  that  Helen  had  ever 
quitted  Lacedaemon  at  all,  or  by  consequence  sinned 
against  her  nuptial  vow,  devolving,  from  the  first,  on 
the  phantom  alone  the  functions  of  both  fugitive  and 
adulteress.^  Tliis  appears  from  the  still  extant  exor- 
dium of  the  Palinodia,  which  in  an  abrupt  and  excited 
tone,  at  once  announces  the  author's  object  in  com- 
posing the  poem,  and  offers  a  summary  of  its  contents: 

o'jK  e(TT   eTtj[xog  "koyog  oirog' 

o-j  yap  s^ag  sv  vyjUCTiv  sua'crs?\.ixoigy 

ouo   ]'>iso  TTsoyrjLixot.  Tpoiag," 

Untiue  's  the  tale  I  told  ;  for  ne'er  didst  thou 
The  briny  sea  in  swift-oared  galley  plough, 
Or  visit  lofty  Troy. 

The  words   "  Untrue 's  the  tale "   passed  into  a  fa 

'  Die  Chrys.  vol.  i.  p.  3-23.  Reisk. ;  conf.  Plat.,  alios  ap,  Klein,  p.  93,  sq. 

"  Frg.  xLiv. 

r2 


244  BiOGUAi'iiY  or  LYiac  toets,         Booic  in. 

miliar  proverb,  ennobled  by  the  use  of  Plato,  Cicero, 
and  other  distino^uished  classics.^     A  still  more  strik- 
mg  living  test  of  the  celebrity  of  the  poem  and  of 
its  author,  is  the  adoption  and  inveterate  use  ^  of  the 
term  "  recant,"   or  "  sing  back  again,"  in  the   sense 
of  retract  or  unsay,  in  the  vocabulary,  not  only  of 
Greece,  but  of  civilised  Europe.     This  phrase,  how- 
ever familiar  and  expressive  it  may  by  long  usage 
have  become  to  our  ears,  has  no  intrinsic  sense  or 
point  but  in  connexion  with  Stesichorus  and  his  Pa- 
linodia.     How  the  sequel  of  the  real  Helen's  history 
Avas  treated  by  him,  if  indeed  he  ventured  to  grapple 
with  it  at  all ;  whether  he  left  her  concealed  in  her 
husband's   palace    at   Sparta,  or  transported    her  at 
once  to  the  isle  of  Leuka,  to  be  reserved  for  her  future 
marriage  to  Achilles,  are  points   on  Avhich  no  light 
is  shed  either  by  the  fragments  or  the  quoters  of  the 
poem.     The  Palinodia  is,  there  can  be  no  doubt,  the 
same  work  also  cited  occasionally  as  the  "  Encomium 
of   Helen,"    sometimes    simply   as    the    "  Helen  ^'    of 
Stesichorus.^     It  appears  to   have  comprised  a   de- 
scription of  the  nuptials  of  the  heroine  and  Menelaus 
in  the  form  of  an  episode,  introduced,  it  may  be  pre- 
sumed, as  a  medium  for  the  more  effective  celebration 
of  the  beauty  and  purity  of  the  bride.^ 
Kosti.        The  Nosti,  or  "  Return  of  the  Greeks/'  ^  forming 
a  sequel  to   the   "  Destruction  of  Ilium/'  narrated, 
in   considerable  detail,    the   destinies  of  the  heroes, 
"  whether  they  perished  in  the  sea,  were  driven  to 
"  wander  on  foreign  shores,  or  reached  their  native 
"  land  in  safety."     The  "  Scylla,"  if  devoted  to  the 

'  Ap.  Klein,  p.  91.  sqq.  ^  Auctt.  ap.  Klein,  snp.  cit.  et  p.  95.  sqq_ 

^  Suld.  V.  Sttjo-.  ;  Athen.  ni.  p.  81.,  x.  p.  451. ;  conf.  Klein,  p.  21.  sqq. 
*  Frg.  xLvi.  ^  Klein,  p.  81.  sq.  ;  frg.  xxxiv.  sqq. 


Ch.  IV.  §19.         STESICIIORUS.       635— 554  B.C.  2  iS 

adventure  of  Ulysses  with  the  monster  heroine  whose 
name  it  bears,  could  have  been  little  more  than  an 
ejDisode  of  the  Nosti.  Hercules  however,  as  has  been 
seen,  has  prior  claims  to  the  honour  of  hero  of  the 
former  poem. 

The  Orestia  was  divided  into  two  books  \  and  judg-  orestia. 
ing  from  the  numerous  quotations  of  its  text,  must 
have  been  a  poem  of  some  length,  embracing  various 
heads  of  episodical  matter  besides  its  own  immediate 
subject.  Here  again  Stesichorus  prefers  the  more 
eccentric  varieties  of  tradition.  The  royal  residence  of 
Agamemnon  was  placed  at  Lacedaemon,  instead  of  My- 
cenae.^ The  invention  of  alphabetic  letters  was  ascribed 
to  Palamedes^;  whether  that  of  the  whole  number,  or 
merely  of  the  additional  four  for  which  later  gramma- 
rians gave  that  hero  credit,  is  not  distinctly  stated. 

19.  The  fables  which  supply  the  subjects  of  the  ca'yce. 
Calyce  and  Rhadina,  the  two  remaining  poems  on  the 
list,  are  of  a  somewhat  diiFerent  character  from  those 
hitherto  examined.  The  "Calyce"^  narrated  the 
sorrows  of  a  nymph  of  the  same  name,  who,  deeply 
enamoured  of  a  youth  called  Euathlus ',  prayed  to 
Venus  that  she  might  obtain  him  as  her  husband ; 
but  failing  in  her  efforts  to  propitiate  the  goddess, 
or  to  inspire  the  object  of  her  affection  Avith  an 
honourable  passion  in  return,  she  sacrificed  herself 
to  her  love  by  a  leap  from  the  Leucadian  cliff. 

Rhadina,   a  virgin  of  the   town  of  Samos  on  the  Rhadina. 
coast  of  Elis,  was  beloved  by  a  tyrant  of  Corinth,  and 

I   Bekk.  Anecd.  Gr.  p.  783.  -  Schol.  Eurip.  Orest.  46. 

3  Bekk.  Anecd.  Gr.  loc.  cit.  *  Frg.  i.iv. ;  Athen.  xiv.  p.  619. 

*  Stesichoi'us  seems  here  to  have  mixed  up  the  legend  of  the  rustic 
"  Lay  of  Calyce"  (supra,  Ch.  il.  §  xix.)  with  Ilesiod's  tradition  of  a  nymph 
of  the  same  name,  daughter  of  Ilesiod  and  spouse  of  Aiithlius.  Marcksch. 
Fragm.  Hesiod.  xu.;  conf.  Apollod.  i.  vii.  3.  5.  Klein,  p.  105. 

E  3 


246 


BIOGHArilY    OF    LYRIC    TOETS. 


Book  III. 


Ptcans, 

Apocrypliiil 

Docms. 


delivered  up  ^  by  her  parents,  or  the  native  rulers, 
an  unwillino;  victim  to  his  passion.     Her  cousin  and 
lover   Leontychus   pursued  her   to   Corinth ;  and  in 
an   attempt  to  rescue   her   both  were  slain    by  the 
tyrant,  who    in   a  fit  of  remorse  delivered  up  the 
bodies  to  their  friends.^     This  adventure,  of  all  those 
treated  by  Stesichorus,  is  the   only  one  which  can, 
with  any   probability,  be  considered  as   embodying 
a  historical  fact,   or  at  least  a  tradition  connected 
with  the  historical  age  of  Greece.     The  Corinthian 
"  tyrant "  could  hardly  have  been  the  celebrated  Peri- 
ander,  the  poet's  contemporary,  although  the  adven- 
ture would  be  in  unison  with  the  popular  accounts  of 
Periander's  character.     These  two  poems,  the  Calyce 
and  the  Ilhadina,  offer  the  first  recorded  examples  of 
the  treatment,  in  classical  Greek  poetry,  of  that  species 
of  romantic  love  story  which  afterwards  acquired  so 
great  a  popularity  in  the  pages  of  Parthenius,  Helio- 
dorus,   and  other  prose  authors  of  the  Roman  and 
Byzantine  periods.^ 

By  various  modern    commentators   the  collective 
works  of  Stesichorus  have  been  supposed  to  comprise, 

^  Whether  as  bride  or  mistress  is  left  doubtful.  The  Samians  of  Asia 
Minor  also  claimed  Rhadina  as  their  own,  according  to  Pausanias  vii.  v.  6. 

*  Strabo,  VIII.  p.  347.  A  free  version  has  here  been  given  of  Strabo's 
acconnt,  Avhich  is  somewhat  ambiguous  and  confused ;  but  tlie  substance 
of  it  seems  to  be  as  embodied  in  the  text.  What  the  mission  of 
Rhadina's  brother  to  Deljihi,  mentioned  by  the  geographer,  had  to  do 
-with  the  matter  does  not  appear. 

'  A  poem  on  the  subject  of  the  celebrated  Sicilian  pastoral  hero 
Daphnis,  has  also  been  ascribed  to  Stesichorus  by  modern  critics,  and 
lias  supplied  material  for  elaborate  commentaries  to  Welcker,  O.  Mijllcr, 
and  others.  But  the  single  vague  passage  of  iElian  (V.  II.  x.  xviii.),  on 
which  the  existence  of  such  a  poem  has  been  assimied,  does  not  appear 
sufficient  to  bear  out  any  such  conclusion  ;  although  it  seems  probable 
that  Stesichorus  may  have  alluded  to  the  fate  of  the  fabulous  llimerasan 
shepherd  be)y  in  some  of  his  works. 


Cii.IV.  §19.        STESrCIIORUS.       635— 554  B.  C.  247 

besides  the  epico-lyric  poems  for  which  he  was  chiefly 
celebrated,  numerous  other  more  properly  lyric  pro- 
ductions: hymns,  poeans,  erotica,  elegies,  scolia,  bu- 
colica,  and  metrical  fables.  That  a  popular  lyric 
poet  should  have  composed  many  such  pieces  seems 
in  itself  certainlj^  probable.  AVith  the  exception  how- 
ever of  a  convivial  paian  \  and  of  a  hymn  to  Pallas  '^, 
the  notices  of  which  last  are,  at  the  best,  extremely 
doubtful,  there  is  no  authentic  record  of  works  be- 
longing to  any  of  those  branches  of  composition 
having  been  ascribed  to  Stesichorus.  The  poem  cited 
by  the  title  "  Encomium  of  Helen  "  has  already  been 
disposed  of.  The  "  Epithalamium  of  Helen  "  ^  seems 
to  have  formed  part  either  of  the  liii-Persis  or  the 
Palinodia,  probably  of  the  latter.  The  erotic  poems'* 
were  the  Calyce,  lihadina,  and  others  possibly  in  tlie 
same  style,  the  names  of  which  have  perished.  Of 
bucolic  poems  or  elegies  by  Stesichorus  there  is  no 
authentic  notice.^  The  psean  or  paeans  attributed 
to  him,  appear  to  have  been  of  the  kind  usually  ap- 
propriated to  social  festivities.*^  The  scolia  somewhat 
vaguely  ascribed  to  Stesichorus,  like  those  quoted  of 
various  other  illustrious  lyric  poets,  were  apparently 
nothing  more  than  appropriate  passages  selected  from 
the  body  of  his  works,  and  introduced  as  parts  or 
members  of  the  popular  roundelays  or  catches,  to 

1  Timajus  ap.  Atlien.  vi.  p.  250.  -  Frg.  xcvii. 

^  Scliol.  Theocr.  Id.  xviii.  These  various  compositions,  or  rather 
titles,  are  compreliended  under  the  common  head  of  vixvovs  tls  'L\4vr)v  by 
Conon,  Narrat.  18.  ap.  Phot.  ^  Klein,  j).  100.  sq. 

^  The  only  allusion  to  Bucolica  occurs  in  the  passage  of  iElian  relative 
to  Da])hnis,  already  dis[)osed  of.  Elegies  are  mentioned  but  in  the 
letters  of  the  Pseiido-Piialaiis,  and  in  terms  which  do  not  here  warrant 
the  assumption  of  any  historical  basis  for  his  fictions.  Klein,  p.  114.; 
Welck.  p.  -214. 

*  Alhen.  vi.  p.  250.  ;  Ilesych.  v.  Tpias  '2.rr,<nxopr.v. 

R   4 


248  BIOGRAPHY    OF   LYRIC    TOETS.  I5ook  HI. 

whicli  attention  has  been  directed  in  a  former  chap- 
ter.' 
Fables.  Still  less  authority  is  there  for  the  belief  that 
Stesichorus  composed  metrical  fables  of  the  iEsopic 
order.  The  moral  tales  of  this  description  above 
referred  to,  that  of  the  Horse  and  Stag  for  example, 
quoted  by  Aristotle  \  are  ascribed  to  the  poet  in  his 
political,  not  his  poetical  capacity.  Another  similar 
piece  of  advice,  embodied  in  a  like  figurative  form,  is 
that  recorded  on  the  same  authority  ^  as  having  been 
imparted  by  Stesichorus  to  the  Locrians,  where  he 
warns  them  to  beware,  "  lest  the  reckless  impolicy  of 
"  their  conduct  should  cause  their  crickets  to  sing  on 
"  the  ground  ;  "  in  other  words,  lest  their  country 
should  be  invaded,  its  vines  and  olive  trees  cut 
doAvn,  and  the  wood-crickets  no  longer  perch  on  their 
branches.  There  is  as  little  reason  here  as  in  the 
former  case  to  suppose  that  the  lesson  was  delivered 
in  a  metrical  form.  The  fable  of  "  The  Man  and  the 
Eagle,"  diffusely  narrated  by  ^Elian^,  is  also  stated  by 
that  author,  in  somewhat  ambiguous  terms,  to  have 
been  cited  by  Crates  the  grammarian  from  a  "  rare 
work  "  of  Stesichorus.  Admitting  the  substance  of 
this  notice  to  be  correct,  the  story  could  have  formed 
but  an  epilogue  or  illustration,  not  the  principal  sub- 
ject of  the  supposed  work.  It  was  to  the  following 
effect : 

A  party  of  reapers,  reposing  during  the  heat  of  the  day,  sent 
one  of  their  number  to  draw  water  from  a  fountain.  The  man 
on  approaching  tlie  spot  saw  an  eagle  entwined  in  the  coils  of  a 
large  serpent,  and  in  the  last  gasp  of  strangulation.     Hastening 

1  Conf.  Welck.  Stesich.  p.  211.  .^  Rliet.  ii.  xx.  Tauchn. 

*  Arist.  Rhet.  ii.  xxi.  (xxii.)  alibi.  Similar  is  our  own  popular  pro- 
verb of  "  making  the  S(|uirrels,walk,"  denoting  a  great  fidl  of  wood. 

*  Hist.  An.  XVII.  37.  and  ap.  Klein,  p.  Ill-  sip 


Ch.  IV.  §20.        STESICIIOKUS.       635— 554  15.  C.  249 

with  pious  zeal  to  the  rescue  of  Jove's  messenger,  he  cut  tlie 
serpent  in  two  with  his  sickle,  and  the  bird  recovered  and  escaped. 
Returning  to  his  companions,  the  reaper,  whose  turn  it  was  to 
act  as  cupbearer,  mixed  the  water  with  a  due  proportion  of  the 
common  stock  of  wine,  and  poured  out  to  each  man  his  share  of 
the  beverage.  But  as  he  was  about  to  enjoy  his  own  portion,  the 
eagle,  which  had  remained  hovering  around  him,  flew  against  the 
cup  and  dashed  it  to  the  ground.  On  the  point  of  bitterly  re- 
proaching the  bird  for  so  unworthy  a  requital  of  his  late  good 
offices,  the  man  happened  to  look  towards  his  comrades,  and  saw 
those  who  had  first  drunk  writhing  in  the  agonies  of  death.  The 
water  had  been  poisoned  by  the  venom  of  the  snake.  He  now 
saw  that  to  the  gratitude  of  the  eagle  he  was  indebted,  in  his 
turn,  for  the  preservation  of  his  life. 

20.  The   remains  of  Stesichorus    comprise   about  Gram- 
fifty  lines   of  various   lengths  and   characters.     liis  ",^,bdivi3ion 
■whole  works  are  subdivided  by  the  grammarians  into  ofhisworks. 
twenty-six  books. ^     As  this  number  considerably  ex- 
ceeds that  of  his  entire  poems,  which  has  been  given 
above  in  so  far  as  their  names  have  been  preserved, 
it  may  be  presumed  that  in  the  antient  enumeration 
the  separate  parts  or  books  of  poems  were  taken  into 
account. 

It  was  stated  in  a  previous  chapter  -  that,  while  Their  re- 
Alcman  enjoyed  the  credit  of  originating  the  anti- 
strophic  style  of  composition,  to  Stesichorus  was  as- 
signed the  honour  of  carrying  its  elementary  principle 
to  maturity,  by  the  addition  of  the  epode  to  the  two 
simpler  alternations  of  choral  response,  and  of  having 
thus  laid  the  entire  basis  of  the  variety  of  forms 
which  the  antistrophic  ode  assumed  in  the  hands  of 
the  Attic  dramatists.  Among  the  fragments  of  his 
works  are  none  of  sufficient  continuity  to  afford  tmy 
clear  insio;ht  into  the  actual  arrano-ement  of  his 
chorus ;    but  from  secondary  sources  it   may  be  in- 

^  Suid   V.  2Ti)(r;x.  ^  Suj)r;t,  p.  GO. 


250  BIOGHAPIIY    OF    LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

ferred  tliat  there  was  much  general  correspondence 
between  his  odes  and  those  of  Pindar,  in  regard  at 
least  to  the  length  and  varied  character  of  their 
stroj)hes.  And  here  the  question  arises,  to  what  extent 
the  continuous  heroic  narrative  of  the  Stesichorean 
odes  could,  consistently  with  the  dignity  or  propriety 
of  their  epic  character,  have  admitted  of  a  purely 
choral  performance.  The  analogy  of  those  of  Pindar, 
which  often  comprise  a  large  amount  of  historical 
matter,  scarcely  applies  here.  The  epic  is  with  that 
poet  still  altogether  subordinate  to  the  lyric  element, 
and  each  ode  in  its  integrity  is  essentially  adapted  to 
the  forms  of  lyric  ceremonial.  But  it  is  less  easy  to 
imagine  a  simihu'  adaptation  in  the  case  of  the  Ilii- 
Persis  or  the  Nosti  of  Stesichorus.  Perhaps  therefore 
the  more  probable  view,  and  which  seems  also  to 
receive  support  from  antient  authority,  may  be,  that 
the  compositions  of  Stesichorus,  those  at  least  in 
which  the  epic  character  chiefly  predominates,  were 
destined  for  recital  in  a  more  continuous  form,  and 
with  a  less  varied  style  of  musical  accompaniment, 
somewhat  in  the  manner  of  the  rhapsodial  rehearsals 
of  Homer,  Hesiod,  and  other  poets  of  the  regular  epic 
school.^ 
Metres.  The  metres  of  Stesichorus,  as  exemplified  in  his 
remains,  are  all  reducible  to  certain  lofty  and  sonorous 
combinations  of  dactylic  or  trochaic  rhythm,  compre- 
hending, besides  the  primary  forms  of  each  of  those 
measures,  the  choriambic,  anapaestic,  and  Dorian  epi- 
trite.^  The  monotony  of  effect,  which  might  otherwise 
have  been  expected  to  result  from  a  repetition  of  these 
more  grave  and  solemn  metrical  cadences  in  a  text 
of   prolonged  epic    continuity,    was  relieved   by  the 

^  Chamael.  ap.  Athen.  xiv.  p.  620.;  conf.  Welck.  Steslch.  p.  166. 
=  Klein,  Fragm.  p.  41.  S(|q. ;  "Wclck.  Stcsich.  p.  171.  sqq. 


Cu.  IV.  §J0.        STIiSICHORUS.       635-  551  B.C.  251 

variety  of  new  and  agreeable  turns  wliicli  he  im- 
parted to  them.  Hence  the  number  of  such  combi- 
nations wliich,  besides  their  more  technical  definition, 
bear  the  distinctive  surname  of  Stesichorean,  and 
most  of  which  have  been  used  by  Pindar.  The 
pecuhar  harmony  and  suavity  of  the  versification  of 
Stesichorus,  combined  with  his  lucid  perspicuity  of 
style,  beauties  so  much  dwelt  on  by  the  antient 
critics  above  quoted,  were  figured  by  the  elegant  fable, 
that  when  an  infant,  shortly  after  his  birth,  a  night- 
ingale was  found  perched  on  his  lips,  warbling  her 
sweetest  notes.^  The  authority  of  the  connnentators 
is  here  amply  confirmed  by  the  poet's  remains.  The 
following  passage,  embodying  his  own  fantastical  alle- 
gory and  that  of  the  lyric  schools  of  his  da}',  relative 
to  the  sun's  evening  course  in  the  heaven,  will  serve 
for  more  effectual  illustration,  owing  to  the  beauty 
of  the  work  being  so  little  dependant  on  that  of  the 
material : 

As/\iog  6     1  TrBpirjviOag  osTrag  so'KarsjZiaiUB 
^f>uG-zOV,  o^pot  Oi'  a)x=avo7o  Trspdo-ag, 
od^ixQiS'  Uf>ag  ttot)  IdsvS-a  vjxrog  ac^iuudg' 
TTOTi  juarspa,  Hov^ioiav  r   d7^o-yov, 
Trai^dg  rs  t^b^wg'  b  o'  eg  diXfrog  sjirx 
Za.(^va.i(ri  xarao-Kiov 
TToaa)  Trd'ig  Aiog. 

Hyperion  now  his  golden  car'*  ascends, 
And  o'er  the  trackless  wave  of  ocean  bends 
His  radiant  course,  to  where  night's  sacred  shades 
Heaven's  light  absorb  ;  there,  in  his  laur«l  glades, 
His  motlur,  his  fond  spouse,  and  children  dear, 
His  daily  toil  with  their  sweet  converse  cheer. 

*  Ciiristodorus  in  Antliol.  Pal.  vol.  i.  p.  3J,  ed.  Taiidinilz;  conf, 
Plin.  11.  N.  X.  xxix.  (xliii ) 

^  The  author,  for  the  sake  of  his  ov.'n  vcrae,  lias  taken  I  lie  liberty  of 
substituting  cur  for  cii/>. 


252  BIOGRAPHY    OF   LYllIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

It  is  not  easy  to  imagine  anything  in  language 
more  perfectly  harmonious,  as  to  structure,  measure, 
and  sound,  than  these  seven  lines.  The  remark  may 
be  extended  to  almost  every  other  passage  in  the 
Dialect,  collection.  The  dialect  of  Stesichorus  is  usually  de- 
fined as  Doric  \  but  approaches,  as  befitted  the  general 
character  of  his  muse,  more  nearly  to  the  old  epic 
idiom  than  that  of  any  other  melic  poet  of  this  period. 
It  might  perhaps  be  more  accurately  characterised  as 
Homeric,  seasoned  with  Doric  or  vEolic  forms  ;  a  com- 
bination representing  both  the  character  of  the  poet's 
own  muse,  and  the  mixed  origin  of  the  Himersean 
colony.^  Plutarch^  describes  Stesichorus  as  exhibiting 
in  the  musical  arrangement  of  his  odes  a  preference 
for  the  nomes  of  Olympus,  especially  the  harmatian 
and  orthian  nomes  of  that  master ;  a  style  of  music 
which  has  above  been  shown  to  be  equally  adapted 
to  the  more  dignified  and  to  the  more  impassioned 
orders  of  lyric  performance.  The  poet  himself  is 
stated,  on  the  same  authority^,  to  have  been  the 
author  of  several  improvements  in  the  musical  art, 
probably  in  its  adaptation  to  his  own  peculiar  style 
of  lyric  composition. 


SACADAS.     XEXOCPvITUS.     EUNOMUS.     586  B.C. 

other  21.  Attention  has  already  been  called,  in  connexion 

pwtt^^"*^    with  the  life  and  works  of  Stesichorus,  to  one  earlier 

'  Suid.  et  Eudocia,  v.  2Tr)trix.  That  is,  the  poetical  Doric  of  the  Spartan 
school.  There  is  no  trace  of  the  Siculo-Doric  ;  which  was  not  matured, 
as  a  cultivated  dialect,  out  of  the  provincial  idiom  of  the  island,  till  a 
later  period. 

^  Tiiucyd.  vi.  5.  ^  p^  ]\jus.  vii.  *  Plut.  de  M.  xir. 


Cn.  IV.  §-21.       SACADAS.       XENOCUITUS.       586  B.C.  253 

cultivator  of  the  same  field  of  poetical  pursuit.  Some 
additional  notices  are  here  subjoined  of  two  other 
less  celebrated  lyric  poets,  whose  compositions  par- 
took of  the  Stesichorean  character,  Sacadas  of  Argos 
and  Xenocritus  of  Locris.^  Both  appear,  from  the 
not  very  distinct  notices  of  their  age,  to  have  been 
younger  contemporaries  of  Stesichorus.^  Both  are 
more  celebrated  as  musicians  than  as  poets,  in  which 
former  capacity  they  have  already  been  brought 
under  notice.^ 

Sacadas  composed  a  poem  on  the  same  subject,  in  sacadns  of 
the  same  epico-melic  style,  and  under  the  same  title,  '^'^°*' 
as  the  Ilii-Persis  of  Stesichorus.^  The  most  honour- 
able testimony  to  the  value  of  the  poetry  of  Sacadas, 
is  its  reported  selection  by  the  Messenians,  for  per- 
formance in  the  musical  festivities  held  in  honour 
of  the  reestablishment  of  their  national  independance 
by  Epaminondas.^  It  may  hence  also  be  inferred, 
that  the  subjects  of  some  of  his  works  were  connected 
with  Messenian  history. 

Of  the  blind-born  ^  Locrian  poet  and  musician  xenocritus 
Xenocritus,  it  is  recorded^,  that  "he  composed  songs  ""^ ^'"'^'■'^* 
on  heroic  arguments  embodying  an  action,"  The 
coincidence  implied  in  this  definition  between  his 
style  and  that  of  Stesichorus,  seems  to  bear  some 
historical  relation  to  tlie  fact,  that  Xenocritus  was  a 
native  of  the  Italian  Locris,  and  founder  or  chief  of  a 
school  of  music  which  derived  its  name  from  that 
district.  As  all  the  traditions  reofarding;  Stesichorus 
point  to  the  same  Locris  as  the  source  whence  that  poet 

^  Pint,  de  M.  VIII.  IX.  x. 

2  Clint.  Fast.  Hell.  vol.  i.  p.  201.  229. ;  conf.  Plut.  locc.  citt. 

'  Supra,  p.  44.  sq.  *  Atlien.  xiii.  p.  GIO  c. 

*  Pausan.  iv.  xxvii.  4.  ;  conf.  supra,  p.  4G. 

*  Heraclid.  Politic,  ed.  Schneidew.  xxx.  "  Plut,  de  ]\Iiis.  x. 


125  i  BIOGRAPHY    OF    LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

also  derived  his  origin,  with  the  peculiar  bent  of  his 
poetical  genius,  it  ma}' the  more  naturally  be  inferred 
that  the  common  epico-lyric  style  of  the  two  authors 
had  its  first  beginnings  in  Italy.     Beyond  the  fact  of 
their  being  to  some  extent  contemporar}',  no  distinct 
notice  has  been  preserved  of  their  relative  ages ;  nor 
consequently,  how  far  they  may  have  stood  towards 
each    other   in    the    relation    of  disciple    or   master. 
There  could,  however,  have  been  but  little  analogy 
between  them   in   respect  to  the  moral  tendency  of 
their   works ;  the    Locrian    school   proper,    both    of 
music   and  poetry,  being    remarkable   for  its  mere- 
tricious character  \   while   that    of   Stesichorus  was 
distinguished  by  attributes   of  an  entirely  opposite 
description.     It  is  to  be  regretted,  in  reference  to  the 
historical  question  here  involved,  that  no  record  has 
been  transmitted  of  the  birthplace  of  Xanthus,  the 
acknowledged  predecessor  of  both  authors.     But  the 
argument  in  favour  of  Locris,  as  remote  ancestress 
of    this    branch    of    art,    receives    further    support 
Eiinomus      from  Luciau's  introduction  of  Eunomus,  another  ap- 
parently   still   earlier  Locrian  poet,  as   leader   of  a 
chorus  comprising  also   Arion,   Anacreon,   and   Ste- 
sichorus, in  the  "lyric  performance  of  epic  compo- 
sitions."^    As  this  Eunomus  could  have  had  no  claim 
to  any  such  precedence  on  the  ground  of  merit,  the 
honour  thus  awarded  to  him  can  only  be  due  to  his 
priority  of  age.     He    seems  however,   like    Sacadas 
and  Xenocritus,  to  have  been  more  celebrated  as  a 
musician  than  as  a  poet  in  the  same  Locrian  school. 
The  following  pleasing  fable  is  related  of  him  :  ^ 

1  See  supra,  p.  45.  -  Ver.  Hist.  n.  15. 

^  Tiniffius  ap.  Strab.  vi.  p.  260.;  Lucian.  loc.  cit. ;  Conoii,  Narr.  5., 
ap.  Pliot.  Cod.  186. ;  .Elian.  Hist.  An.  v.  ix. 


and  his 
cricket, 


Cii.  IV.  §21.  EUNOMUS.       5SG  B.  C.  255 

"  The  boundary  between  the  Locrian  and  Rhegian 
territories  Avas  a  deep  ravine,  remarkable  for  the  i)ecu- 
liarity  that  the  wood-crickets  of  the  Rhegian  bank 
were  dumb,  while  those  on  the  Locrian  side  Avere 
gifted  with  even  more  than  their  usual  vocal  powers.^ 
While  Eunomus  and  a  neiofhbourino;  Rhe2;ian  artist, 
named  Ariston,  were  preparing  for  a  competition  in 
the  citharoedic  performance  of  the  Pythian  festival, 
a  conversation  took  place  between  them  as  to  their 
respective  prospects  of  success.  Ariston  affected  to 
talk  proudly,  as  member  of  a  family  devoted  to  the 
worship  of  Apollo.  The  Locrian  retorted  :  '  It  were 
strange  should  the  prize  be  awarded  to  a  native  of 
a  district  where  even  the  crickets,  so  proverbial  for 
the  sweetness  of  their  music,  are  silent.'  During 
the  ensuing  contest  a  string  of  the  lyre  of  Eunomus 
gave  way,  and  he  despaired  of  success  ;  but  a  cricket, 
bearing  in  grateful  remembrance  his  late  compliment 
to  her  race,  took  up  her  post  on  the  stump  of  the 
bi'oken  chord,  and  so  effectually  performed  its  func- 
tions with  her  voice  that  the  victory  was  declared  in 
his  favour." 

^  Tlie  wood-cricket  is,  tliroiighciut  the  poetical  literature  of  Greece 
and  Italy,  from  Homer  and  Hesiod  downwards,  celebrated  for  the  sweet- 
ness of  its  note  ;  and  its  song  is  hence,  conjointly  with  that  of  the  night- 
ingale, the  favourite  symbol  of  music  and  lyric  poetry.  Foreigners 
however,  on  first  visiting  the  South  of  Europe,  usually  find  the  mono- 
tonous chirp  or  hiss  of  this  animal,  which  fills  the  air  during  the  great 
heat  of  the  summer  months,  extremely  unpleasant.  The  opposite  feeling 
on  the  part  of  the  natives  is  evidently  the  result  of  no  different  estimate 
of  the  actual  harmony  of  the  same  chirp  or  hiss,  but  of  an  association  of 
the  sound  with  the  fine  season  dui-ing  which  it  prevails,  and  with  the 
blooming  vines,  olives,  and  other  rich  fruit  trees,  on  the  branches  of 
which  the  animal  chiefly  perches.  The  author,  from  an  experience  of 
many  years'  residence  in  Italy,  can  vouch  in  his  own  case  for  ihe  full 
influence  of  tliis  association. 


25l)  niOOUAPIlV    OF    lyric    poets.  Book  hi. 


CHAP.  V. 

ALCiEUS.       SAPPHO.      DAMOPHYLA.      ERINNA. 

1.  Al.C.EUS.       HIS  LIFE    AND    TISIES. 2.  HIS    CIIAKACTEH,    rOLITICAL    ANU   TER- 

SONAL.  -^  3.  HIS    WORKS  :     STASIOTICA,    EROTICA,    CONVIVIAL    SONGS,    HYMNS, 

4.    METRES    INVENTED    OR    CULTIVATED    HT    HIM.  5.    SAPPHO. 6.    HER 

lUUTHPLACE,     AGE,     FAMILY,     AND    SOCIAL    RELATIONS. 7.  HER     LOVE     FOR 

rilAON.       HER    LEDCADIAN    LEAP. 8.    ORIGIN    OP    THE    RITE. 9.  EVIDENCE 

FOR  AND  AGAINST  HER    PERFORMANCE    OF    IT. 10.  HER    PERSONAL   APPEAR- 
ANCE.       MORAL    HABITS. 11.    FALLACY     OF    THE    LATE    POPULAR    ESTIMATE 

OF  HER    CHARACTER. 12.  HOW    FAR    REPRESENTED   BY  THE    ANTIENTS    AS  A 

COURTESAN. 13.    HOW    REPRESENTED    IN     THE    COMIC    DRAMA    OF    ATHENS. 

14.    APOLOGY    FOR     HER    CHARACTER    DERIVED    FROM     THE     FREEDOM    OF 

.a:OLIAN    MANNERS. 15.    HER    CHARACTER    AS    PORTRAYED    BY    HERSELF    IN 

HER    ODE    TO    VENUS. 16.    IN    HER    OTHER  POEMS  . 17.    HER    RELATIONS 

TO     HER     FEMALE     ASSOCIATES. 18.    CRITICAL     ESTIMATE     OP     HER     GENII'S 

AND    WORKS.       HER    METRES. 19.  BRANCHES    OF    COMPOSITION    CULTIVATED 

BY    HER. 20.    DAMOPHYLA.       ERINNA. 

ALC^US.»     611  B.C. 

Aicaeiis,  his  1.  That   intimate    connexion  with    the    realities    of 
times.  contemporary  life,  which  forms  so  prominent  a  cha- 

racteristic of  Greek  lyric  poetry,  acquires  a  peculiar 
value  in  the  case  of  authors  actively  engaged  in 
public  affairs.  The  works  of  such  poets  often  supply, 
in  tlie  earlier  imperfect  stages  of  prose  history,  the 
best  and  most  authentic  records  of  contemporary 
events.  This  peculiarity  of  the  Lyric  Muse  has  al- 
ready been  largely  illustrated  in  the  cases  not  only 
of  Tyrtseus  and  Callinus,  whose  poetry  is  solely  or 
chiefly    of  a   political  tendency,  but  in  those  of  Ar- 

^  Mattliiae,  Alcaei  Reliquiae;  Gaisf.  Poett.  niinn.  ed.  Lips.  vol.  iii. 
p.  317.;  Schneidewin,  Delectus  Poesis  Gr.  §  iii.  p.  262.;  Bergk,  Poett. 
lyrr.  Gr.  p.  569. ;  conf.  Welcker,  Alcffius,  in  KI.  Schrift.  vol.  i.  p.  126. 
The  remains  are  here  cited  according  to  the  number  and  arrangement  of 
Matthia?,  unless  where  another  collection  is  specified  in  the  reference. 


Ch.  V.  §1.  ALCJEUS.       611   B.C.  257 

chilochus  and  others,  whose  materials  are  derived 
from  sources  of  private  and  personal  rather  than 
public  interest.  The  subject  of  the  present  memoir, 
if  not  so  exclusively  a  political  poet  as  Tyrtaeus,  was 
a  no  less  zealous  politician,  from  necessity  as  well  as 
from  choice.  In  no  other  case  accordingl}',  with  the 
exception  perhaps  of  that  of  the  Spartan  bard,  is  the 
history  both  of  the  poet  and  the  man  more  inseparably 
interwoven  with  that  of  the  times  in  which  he  lived. ^ 

AlciBus  of  Mitylene,  in  the  isle  of  Lesbos,  was  a 
member  of  one  of  the  principal  families  of  that  re- 
public. His  lifetime  coincided  Avith  a  period  during 
which  his  native  country,  while  frequently  engaged 
in  foreign  wars,  was  agitated  also  by  a  constant  strife 
of  internal  factions,  in  which  his  rank  as  a  citizen, 
Avitli  his  ambitious  spirit  and  vehement  temper,  led 
him  to  bear  a  prominent  part. 

The  contending  interests  in  the  state  of  Mitylene, 
at  this  period,  appear  to  have  been  ranged  under 
two  comprehensive  parties  or  factions.  The  one  may 
be  called  the  constitutional  party,  consisting  of  the 
middle  class  of  citizens  and  the  better-disposed  por- 
tion of  the  nobles,  each  of  which  bodies  was  con- 
tent to  assert  its  own  just  privileges  in  conjunction 
with  the  general  liberties  of  the  republic.  The  op- 
posing faction  comprised  the  chiefs  of  certain  power- 
ful families,  who,  aided  by  the  lower  more  servile 
order  of  democracy,  endeavoured,  as  an  oligarchal 
body,  to  engross  the  supreme  authority  ;  and  each  of 
whom  seems  also  to  have  been  ready,  when  oppor- 
tunity offered,  to  usurp  the  whole  of  that  authority 

'   This  feature  of  his  muse  is  pointedly  noticed  by  the  antients.    Herat. 
Carm.  n.  xiii.  26.  ;  conf.  ^latth.  Fragm.  p.  2. 

VOL.  III.  S 


258  BIOGRArHY    OF    LYRIC    POETS.  Book  ni. 

to  himself,  as  sole  despot  or  tyrant,  at  the  expense 
of  his  fellow-oligarchs.  The  family  of  Alceeus,  itself 
belonging  to  the  higher  order  of  aristocracy,  appears 
to  have  sided  sometimes  with  the  one  sometimes 
with  the  other  party,  as  happened  to  suit  the  object 
of  its  leaders.  Hence  the  poet  and  his  brothers, 
while  not  averse  to  oligarchal  government,  when 
themselves  allowed  a  due  share  of  its  power  and 
privileges,  were  easily  converted  into  enthusiastic 
patriots  and  supporters  of  the  constitution,  when 
any  breach  of  established  constitutional  forms  took 
place  for  the  sole  benefit  of  others  or  to  their  own 
detriment. 

The  active  life  of  Alcifius  may  be  dated  from  the 
XLiid  Olympiad,  611  b.  c.^  In  that  year  the  poet's 
brothers,  Cicis  and  Antimenidas,  are  mentioned  as 
leading  associates  of  Pittacus  in  his  successful  con- 
spiracy against  the  usurpation  of  the  tyrant  ]\relan- 
chrus,  whom  they  deposed  and  slew.^  Xot  long 
afterwards,  during  the  war  between  the  Athenians 
and  Mitylenseans  for  the  possession  of  the  tovpn  of 
Sigeum,  the  military  character  of  Alcceus  was  sullied, 
in  an  unsuccessful  action,  by  the  loss  of  his  buckler, 
cast  from  hiro-in  the  hurry  of  his  flight.  .  This  trophy, 
whether  from  his  celebrity  as  a  poet  or  his  prowess 
as  a  warrior,  the  Athenians  thought  sufficiently  im- 
portant to  be  suspended  as  a  votive  offering  in  the 
Sigean  temple  of  their  patron  goddess.^  It  may 
perhaps  seem  doubtful,  in  the  face  of  so  untoward 
an  occurrence,  whether  Alcteus  really  was  as  valiant 
a  soldier  as  his  martial  songs  and  impetuous  spirit 

»  Clint.  Fast.  Hell.  vol.  i.  pp.  216.  219.  22.5. 

'  Diog.  Laert.  i.  iv.  74. ;  Suid.  vv.  niTTOKo's  et  kIkis  ;  Clint,  locc.  citt. 

^  Heroflot.  V.  xpv.  ;  Strab.  xtii.  p.  600.  ;  Matth.  ad  frg.  ix. 


Ch.  V.  §  1.  ALGOUS.       611  B.C.  259 

would  imply.  The  antients^  however,  in  spite  of  this 
single  blemish  on  his  scutcheon,  are  unanimous  in 
admitting  and  celebrating  his  military  prowess ;  and 
the  same  apology  for  the  self-imputed  delinquency 
may  be  advanced  in  his  case  as  in  the  parallel  case 
of  Archilochus.  Like  his  distinguished  predecessor, 
Alca3us  Avas  not  ashamed  to  allude  to  his  mishap  in 
one  of  his  odes,  addressed  in  the  form  of  a  poetical 
letter  from  the  field  of  battle  to  a  friend.^ 

Alcasus  afterwards  appears  as  an  adherent  of  the 
constitutional  I'art}^,  in  the  resistance  offered  by  them 
to  the  attempts  made  by  a  new  series  of  turbulent 
demagogues,  successfully  it  would  sejm  in  several 
instances,  to  reestablish  despotic  power.  The  most 
formidable  of  these  leaders  was  Mvrsilus^,  whose 
death,  from  what  precise  cause  has  not  been  recorded, 
the  poet  celebrates  in  a  tone  of  triumphant  exulta- 
tion in  a  still  extant  passage  of  his  works.'*  In  the 
sequel  of  the  same  political  vicissitudes,  Alcasus  and 
his  brothers  appear,  in  their  turn,  as  usurpers  or 
disturbers  of  the  liberties  of  the  republic.^  They 
were  expelled  in  consequence  by  their  old  ally  Pit- 
tacus,  the  only  staunch  and  disinterested  patriot,  it 
would  seem,  among  these  political  chiefs,  and  who 
was  supported  by  the  mass  of  the  better-disj)osed 
citizens.  In  the  sequel,  as  the  most  effectual  stop  to 
this  disastrous  series  of  civil  broils,  the  same  Pittacus 
was  elected  by  the  unanimous  voice  of  the  "  people," 
as  AlccBus  himself  admits^,  to  the  dignity  entitled 


'  Horat.  Carm.  i.  xxxii.  6. ;  Athen.  xiv.  p.  627.,  xv.  p.  687. ;  Anthol. 
Pal.  IX.  184. ;  Cic.  Tusc.  Disp.  iv.  33. 

^  Frg.  IX.  ^  Fi'g.  II.  ;  Heraclid.  Pont,  ad  loc. 

*  Frg.  IV. ;  Athen.  x.  p.  430. 

*  Strab.  xiii.  p.  617.  *  Frg.  v. 

s  2 


2G0  BIOGRArHY    OF    LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

among  the  Jilolians  ^'Esymnctes,  or  constitutional 
chief  with  dictatorial  powers  for  the  preservation  of 
the  laws  and  liberties  of  the  state. ^  This  measure  is 
described  by  classical  authorities  as  chiefly  directed 
ao-ainst  the  machinations  of  Alcaeus^  and  the  other 

o 

exiled  malcontents. 

The  poet's  muse,  following  the  bent  of  his  passions, 
was  speedily  directed  against  Pittacus,  with  an  ani- 
mosity as  fervid  as  the  zeal  with  which  the  cause  of 
that  patriot  had  formerly  been  lauded  and  supported. 
He  now  denounces  his  fellow-countrymen  in  the  mass 
as  a  servile  mob,  and  their  leader  as  the  author  and 
instrument  of  the  same  tyranny  which  he  affected 
to  abhor  in  others ;  as  a  traitor,  in  comparison  Avith 
whom  even  the  base  Melanchrus^  deserved  well  of 
the  republic;  and  as  a  wretch  everyway  contemptible? 
from  an  accumulation  of  defects,  bodily  and  mental. 
These  imputed  failings  are  described  in  terms  of  vitu- 
peration expressly  invented  for  the  purpose,  such  as 
Archilochus  himself  might  not  have  been  ashamed  to 
employ  in  one  of  his  most  withering  Iambic  sallies. 
The  best  epithets  which  AIcobus  has  now  to  bestow 
on  a  fellow-citizen  so  celebrated  in  every  age  and  in 
every  impartial  quarter,  as  one  of  the  ablest  and 
most  virtuous  of  Greek  patriots  and  philosophers,  are 
those  of  "  base-born,  bloated,  paunchbelly  ;  "  "  splay- 
footed sloven,"  "swaggerer,"  and  "  night- reveller."  ^ 
This  is  the  worst  feature  in  the  character  or  history 

^  Strab.  loc.  cit. ;  Aristot.  Polit.  iii.  ix.  (x.)  ;  Dionys.  Hal.  Ant.  Rom. 
V.  73. ;  Diog.  Laert.  i.  iv. 

*  Aristot.  et  Dion.  Hal.  locc.  citt. 

3  Frg.  vn. ;  conf.  Welck.  Ale.  p.  130. 

*  KaKG-irdrpt^a ;  (piiffKcava,  ydffTpoiya;  crapdiro^a,  adpairov  ;  ayacrvprov ;  X^'P"- 
iroiv ;  yavpiKa;  ^opodopTrlSav.  Aristot.  Pol.  III.  ix.  p.  101.  Taiicbn. ;  Diog. 
Laert.  t.  iv.  81. ;  conf.  {rg.  v.  vi. 


Ch.  V.  §1.  ALC.EUS.       611  B.C.  2G1 

of  Alcasus ;  the  moderation  of  Pittacus  and  the 
purity  of  his  motives  being  admitted  and  eulogised 
by  every  impartial  authority.  The  fact  indeed,  of 
his  having  voluntarily  resigned  his  dictatorship  on 
the  expiry  of  the  ten  years  for  which  it  had  been 
delegated  ^,  is  sufficient  evidence  that  he  was  influ- 
enced by  motives  of  patriotism  rather  than  of  personal 
ambition  to  its  acceptance. 

But  the  hostility  of  Alcseus  was  not  confined  to 
words.  In  an  armed  attempt  to  reestablish  their 
influence,  his  party  was  defeated  and  himself  made 
prisoner;  when  his  generous  adversary,  mindful  rather 
of  the  honour  due  to  his  genius  as  a  poet  than  of 
the  punishment  merited  by  his  offence  as  a  citizen, 
restored  him  to  liberty.^  His  ultimate  fate  is  un- 
known. By  some  authorities  he  is  supposed  to  have 
been  permanently  reconciled  to  Pittacus,  and  to  have 
passed  the  remainder  of  his  life  in  tranquillity  at 
Mitylene,  under  the  mild  sway  of  that  patriotic  ruler  ; 
by  others,  to  have  ended  his  days  a  discontented  wan- 
derer in  foreign  lands.  In  the  course  of  his  peregri- 
nations, and  of  the  maritime  disasters  with  which 
Horace^  describes  them  as  having  been  attended,  he 
visited  Egypt '^ ;  and,  about  the  same  time,  his  brother 
Antimenidas,  his  steady  companion  it  would  seem  in 
good  or  bad  fortune,  entered  into  the  service  of  the 
Babylonian  emperor,  where  he  distinguished  himself 
by  his  valour.  Alca3us  alludes,  in  a  still  extant  pas- 
sage ^,  to  the  victory  achieved  by  this  brother  over  a 
notable  chieftain  of  the  enemy  in  a  battle,  probably 

'  Strab.  xiii.  p.  617. ;  Diog.  Lacit.  i.  iv.  75. 

'  Diog.   Laert.   i.   iv.   76. :  Valer.  Max.  iv.  i.,  Ext.  6.  ;  DIodcri  Ex- 
cerpt. I.  vii. 

•''  Cavin.  II.  xiii.  *  StraVi.  i.  p.  37.  '^  Conf.  Strab.  xin.  ji.'il?, 

s  :^ 


202  BIOGRAPHY    OF   LYRIC    POETS.  Book  IH. 

that  foMglit  at  Carcliemish  between  Nebuchadnezzar 
and  Pharaoh  Xecho.  The  rival  cliampion  appears  to 
have  been  a  sort  of  Assyrian  Goliath,  though  some- 
what inferior  in  stature  to  the  Philistine  giant,  being 
described  by  the  poet  as  "  but  a  span  short  of  five 
"  cubits  in  height."  ^ 
His  (ha-  2.  The  above  review  of  the  public  life  and  conduct 

muli'and"  of  Alcteus,  compiled  from  the  most  impartial  autho- 
persoiiai.  j'ities  and  confirmed  by  his  own  remains,  places  his 
character,  both  as  a  man  and  a  citizen,  in  a  light 
Avhicli  is  far  from  justifying  the  encomia  bestowed 
by  various  critics,  antient  and  modern,  on  his  fervent 
patriotism  and  love  of  liberty.  From  the  same  more 
authentic  sources  it  appears,  that  the  ardour  of  his 
temperament  was  as  broadly  manifested  in  the  pleasures 
as  in  the  business  of  life.  He  describes  himself  as 
resorting  for  consolation  in  disappointment,  to  the 
same  sensual  enjoyments  with  which  he  so  exultingly 
celebrates  the  prosperous  turns  of  his  destiny.  "Wine" 
he  pronounces  "  the  most  efficacious  medicine  for 
"  all  diseases,  the  sweetener  of  the  joys  of  life, 
"  the  remedy  for  all  its  evils,  the  drowner  of  its 
"  cares  ^ ;  the  mirror  of  human  character  ^ ;  the  best 
"  resource  against  the  heat  of  summer^,  or  the  cold  of 
"winter^;  the  best  welcome  to  reviving  spring."^ 
Nor  was  the  proverbial  combination  of  zeal  for  the  wor- 
ship of  Bacchus,  with  an  equal  devotion  to  the  rites  of 

^  Tra\aTray  airoXe'iToyTa  fxojov  fxiav  irdxecoi/  airh  Tre'itTrcov,  according  to 
K.  O.  MUller's  ingenious  restoration  of  the  corrupted  text.  Scbnei- 
dewiii,  frg.  26. ;  conf.  Matth.  frg.  viii. 

^  Frg.  XXXI.  ^  Frg.  xxxvi.  xxxvii.  *  Frg.  xxviii.  a. 

^  Frg.  XXVII. 

®  Frg.  XXVTII.  E.  Kara  irclcray  wpav  Kal  TreplffTaaiv  -irivoiv.  Athen.  X. 
p.  430.,  who  has  carefully  collected  and  ingeniously  commented  the 
numerous  passages  illustrative  of  this  point  in  the  poet's  character;  conf. 
frgg.  XVII.  sqq. 


Ch.  V.  §2.  ALGOUS.       611  B.C.  263 

Venus,  belied  in  his  case.  He  describes  Love  as  the 
most  terrible  of  gods  ^ ;  his  own  submission  to  whose 
authority  seems  also  to  have  been  largely  displayed  in 
the  forms  most  repulsive  to  modern  taste  or  morality. 
Special  mention  occurs  of  his  passion  for  a  youth 
named  Lycus  -,  whom  he  appears  to  have  celebrated 
in  a  very  offensive  strain  of  encomium^;  and,  even 
in  his  flight,  his  exile,  and  greatest  j)olitical  emergen- 
cies, he  is  said  never  to  have  separated  himself  from 
this  favourite  object  of  sensual  attachment.*  Yet, 
althousfh  the  licentiousness  of  his  amorous  muse  has 

o 

been  generally  stigmatised  by  judicious  critics,  none 
of  the  specimens  preserved  are  open  to  very  grave 
censure  on  this  account ;  and  those  allusive  to  the 
tender  relations  between  him  and  Sappho,  whose 
charms  were  among  his  favourite  subjects  of  celebra- 
tion ^,  are  as  remarkable  for  delicacy  as  for  elegance 
of  expression.  In  one  of  the  remaining  texts  ^,  he 
accosts  her  as  the  "  dark-haired,  spotless,  sweetly 
smiling  Sappho."  In  another'^  he  makes  advances  of 
a  less  Platonic  tendency,  which,  in  her  reply,  also 
still  extant,  whether  from  modesty,  prudery,  or  per- 
sonal disinclination,  she  mildly  repels.  Judging 
indeed,  as  well  from  the  recorded  verdict  of  the  an- 
tients  as  from  the  remains  of  his  works,  the  poetry  of 
Alc£eus  was  less  open  to  criticism  than  his  personal 
character.  He  appears  to  have  been  considered,  and 
with  justice,  among  the  most  brilliant  or  even  faultless 
authors  of  his  class,  and  his  works  obtained  a  place 

*  Frg.  XXIV.  ^  Frg.  48.  Schneidew. 

'  Cic.  de  Nat.  D.  i.  xxvlii.     *'  Nsevus  in  articulo  pueri  delectat  Al~ 
caeum." 

*  Horat.  Carm.  i.  xxxii.  7.  sqq. 

*  Herraesianax  ap.  Atheu.  xin.  p.  o98.  ^  Frg.  xi-ii. 
''  Frg.  XLi.  ;  Aristot.  Rhet.  i.  ix. 

8  4 


264  BIOGRAniY    OF    LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

among  the  standard  representatives  of  that  mixture  of 
native  sini])licity  and  dignity  of  expression  so  much 
admired  by  the  great  critics  of  antiquity.^  His  muse, 
although,  as  regards  its  mechanical  element,  strictly 
confined  within  the  limits  of  the  iEolo-melic  school, 
ofFei's  a  considerable  resemblance  to  that  of  Archi- 
loclius  in  the  freedom  with  which  it  ranges  over  an 
extensive  variety  of  subjects,  from  the  heroic  ode  or 
the  scurrilous  pasquinade  to  tlie  tender  love  sonnet  or 
the  joyous  drinking-song.  Any  closer  parallel  how- 
ever between  the  characters  of  the  two  poets,  must  be 
restricted  solely  to  their  common  defects  of  malignity, 
scurrility,  and  profligacy.  Alcaeus  can  advance  little 
or  no  pretension  to  the  higher  ethic  attributes  of  the 
Parian  satirist,  to  his  profound  though  gloomy  spirit 
of  philosopli}',  or  his  elevated  though  morbid  tone  of 
religious  enthusiasm.  Both  were  the  slaves  of  im- 
pulse  ;  but  the  impulse  of  Archilochus,  though  often 
dejrradinof  him  below  himself,  to  disgraceful  excesses 
of  malignity,  transported  him  at  times  as  far  beyond 
himself,  to  the  opposite  extreme  of  the  noble  and 
sublime.  Even  in  the  higher  efforts  of  Alcaeus,  self 
in  its  undisguised  nakedness  seems  always  predomi- 
nant, animating  those  of  his  compositions  devoted 
to  objects  of  public  importance  equally  with  those 
elicited  by  his  own  petty  interests  and  enjoyments. 
His  political  effusions  appear  neither  to  have  con- 
templated nor  produced  any  benefit,  social  or  civil, 
to  his  native  community.  That  their  tendency  was 
rather  in  an  opposite  direction  may  be  assumed,  as 

'  Dion.  Hal.  de  Struct.  Orat.  xxiv.  ;  couf.  Jiulic.  de  vett.  Script, 
p.  421.  ed.  Reisk.  In  the  latter  text  this  commentator  speaks  in  terms 
of  boundless  eulogy  of  his  style,  as  combining  dignity,  conciseness,  sua- 
yitv.  power,  pcr.-^picuity,  and  elegance. 


Ch.  V.  §  3.  ALC.EUS.       611  B.C.  265 

well  from  the  above  details  of  Ins  political  career,  as 
from  the  distinctive  titles  of  Dichostasiastica  and 
Stasiotica,  "  factious,  or  seditious  poems,"  bestowed 
by  the  antients  on  this  chapter  of  his  collective 
works.  His  love  of  strife  and  power  was  also  ac- 
companied by  love  of  money,  if  several  fragments  of 
his  compositions  may  be  trusted,  where  wealth  is  de- 
scribed, in  terms  apparently  representing  the  author's 
OAvn  doctrine,  as  an  indispensable  ingredient  of  merit 
in  human  character ;  poverty  as  equally  incompatible 
with  its  dignity  or  respectability.^ 

3.  Besides  the  Stasiotica  already  mentioned,  under  His  works. 
which  head  his  more  popular  compositions  of  the  mar- 
tial or  satirical  orders  appear  to  have  been  included, 
the  collective  works  of  Alcaeus  comprised  hymns,  love 
sonnets  (Erotica),  and  Symposiaca,  or  convivial  songs. 
The  collection  was  divided  by  later  grammarians 
into  books  ^,  on  what  precise  principle  does  not  ap- 
pear ;  nor  has  the  precise  number  of  such  divisions 
been  specified  ;  but  ten  books  are  incidentally  cited. 
The  most  esteemed  part  of  the  collection  Avere  the 
Stasiotica ;  as  well,  it  may  be  presumed,  from  the 
greater  importance  of  their  subject,  as  from  their 
affording  a  more  effective  medium  for  those  vivid 
displays  of  individual  passion  and  feeling  which  form 
the  zest  of  all  genuine  lyric  poetry.  Quintilian  ^ 
speaks  of  them  in  high  terms  of  commendation, 
passing  over  the  remainder  of  the  collection  with 
comparative  indifference ;  and  censures  the  author 
for  having  bestowed  so  great  a  portion  of  \ns  time 
and  talents,  destined  by  nature  for  nobler  themes, 
on    love    ditties    and    other    inferior    subjects.      To 

'  Frg.  I-.  i.xv.  '^  Welck.  AIcecus,  p.  134.  scj.  '  x.  i.  63, 


266  BIOGRAPHY    OF   LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

the  political  class,  accordingly,  belong  the  greater 
portion  of  the  fragments  transmitted  to  our  own  age 
in  the  citations  of  the  classics.  The  longest  and  most 
spirited  are,  his  description  of  the  brilliant  appearance 
of  his  palace,  resplendent  witli  arms  and  military 
equipages  ^,  on  the  eve  it  would  seem  of  some  great 
outbreak  of  hostile  factions  ;  and  the  remnant  of  the 
ode,  in  which  he  describes  the  distracted  state  of  the 
republic  under  the  figure  of  a  ship  tossed  in  a  stormy 
sea.^  The  former  passage  is  subjoined  as  a  specimen 
of  his  style. 

[xa^[xa.if'Bi   6z   [xsyocg   Oo[xog   yakxco^    7ra.(Ta   O     Apr]    xixo- 
(Tixr^rai  (rrsya' 

77101   y^O^Ol 

vB'JO'j(riv,  Xz^c0^oCi(riv  avopojv  ayaX,aaTa*  yrx7s.xiai 

y.p'jTTTOicnv  7rsfiix=l[x=uai  y^aixTrpca  xvufxi^sg,  apKog  \- 

(Tyjjouj  ^s7^zug ' 
BoipoLXsg  Tz  via)  T^lvcv,  xco'iJ^ai  n  xolt   ot.(T7ri6£g 

Idsfi7\.riixivai. 
Trap  Se  'Ka7\,xi^iHa)  (nrdSai,  Trap  8s  ^wixoltu  7ro7^7^a.   xa.\ 

xjTram^zg. 
TUiU  o'jx  e(rTi  ?va^='<r6'  sttbiOti  TrpuiritTr   utto  spyov  e- 

(TTaiXBV  TOQS. 

From  floor  to  roof  the  spacious  palace  halls 

Glitter  with  war's  array  ; 
"With  burnished  metal  clad,  the  lofty  walls 

Beam  like  the  bright  noon-day. 
There  white-plumed  helmets  hang  from  many  a  nail, 

Above,  in  threatening  row  ; 
Steel-garnished  tunics,  and  broad  coats  of  mail, 

Spread  o'er  the  space  below. 

1  Frg.  I.  Atheuseus,  xiv.  p.  627.  *  Frgg.  ii.  in. 


Ch.V.  §3.  ALCiEUS.       611  B.C.  267 

Cbalcidian  blades  enow,  and  belts  are  here, 

Greaves  and  emblazoned  shields  ; 
Well  tried  protectors  from  the  hostile  spear, 

On  other  battle  fields. 
With  these  good  helps  our  work  of  war's  begun. 

With  those  our  victory  must  be  won. 

Of  tlie  fire  and  spirit  of  his  martial  poetry  this 
passage,  with  others  in  the  collection,  can  leave  no 
room  for  doubt,  "whatever  may  have  been  the  case 
with  the  author's  own  military  conduct.  Some  of 
the  laconic  apophthegms  in  which  he  inculcates  mili- 
tary duty  are  also  singularly  terse  and  pointed.  In 
one  passage  ^,  paraphrased  by  ^Eschylus,  he  tells  us 
that  "  the  device  of  a  warrior's  shield  inflicts  no 
"  wound  ;"  and  in  another-,  also  imitated  by  ilischy- 
lus,  and  cited  or  celebrated  by  various  distinguished 
classics  from  Plato  downwards,  he  pronounces  "  the 
"  best  rampart  of  a  city  to  be  the  valour  of  its  men." 

That  his  amatory  compositions,   however  morally  Erotica. 
defective,  possessed  great  poetical  excellence,  may  be 
inferred,  as  w^ell  from  their  remains,  as  from  the  ex- 
tent to  which  they  were  admired  and  imitated  by  poets 
of  high  credit,  but  less  fastidious  judgement  than  Quin- 
tilian.     His  convivial  songs  were  equally  esteemed;  Convivial 
and  most  deservedly  so,  as  is  evinced  by  many  fine  *°"^*' 
passages  in  the  extant  collection,  distinguished  by  a 
tone   of  licentious   indeed,   but  manly  and  martial 
joviality,    strongly    contrasted    with    the    strains 'in 
which  Anacreon  and  Mimnermus  celebrate  their  luxu- 
rious and  effeminate  debaucheries.     Several  of  these 
convivial  passages  are  also  among  those  where  the 
fervid  impetuosity  of  the  author's  political  feelings 
and  passions  breaks  forth  in  the  most  brilliant  and 

'  Fig.  XIII. ;  Matth.  ad  loc. 

"  Frgg.  XI.  XII.  ;  conf.  Matth.  ad  loc.  ;  Thucyd.  vii.  Ixxvii.  in  fine. 


268  BIOGRAPHY    OF    LYEIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

striking  manner.  His  poems  of  this  class  also  com- 
prised a  number  of  those  lively  epigrammatic  sallies 
called  Scolia,  or  convivial  catches.^ 
Hymns.  Tlic  liymns,  or  religious  compositions  of  Alcaeus  ^, 
far  from  aspiring  to  the  higher  dignity  of  sacred 
poetry,  were  composed,  if  we  may  judge  from  their 
remains,  much  in  the  same  spirit  of  elegant  levity  or 
license  as  his  popular  odes.  In  his  mythological  lore 
he  shows  but  little  respect  for  the  old  orthodox 
Hellenic  standards,  freely  availing  himself  of  his 
privilege  of  lyric  poet  to  strike  out  for  himself  novel 
varieties  of  fable,  marked  by  a  subtle  but  elegant 
ingenuity  of  allegorical  conceit.  One  of  his  hymns 
to  Apollo,  the  substance  of  which  has  been  trans- 
mitted by  Himerius  in  a  prose  epitome,  was  conceived 
in  a  spirit  as  alien  to  the  fable  of  Homer,  as  congenial 
with  that  of  the  Phoebus-smitten  Aristeas  and  his 
Arimaspea.     The  deity  was  described  as  "  presented 

1  Aristoph.  ap.  Athen.  xv.  p.  693.  sq. ;  couf.  Matth.  ad  frg.  xxvi., 
Aristoph.  Yesp.  1227.,  Schol.  ad  loc. ;  conf.  frg.  xiv.  In  the  opening 
line  of  one  of  his  convivial  odes, 

■Kivwixiv'  TL  TO,  \vxi''  a.fjLij.^vojx^v  ;  5a«Ti/Aos  a/j.fpa, 
the  words  SuktuXos  afxepa  have  baffled  the  ingenuity  of  commentators 
both  antlent  and  modern.  Not  one  of  them  has  suggested  any  rational 
interpretation  of  the  phrase.  The  subjoined,  which  has  been  communi- 
cated to  the  author  by  his  accomplished  friend  Mr.  "VY.  R.  Hamilton,  is 
certainly  the  most  ingenious  that  has  yet  been  proposed,  and  supplies  in 
all  probability  the  true  meaning  of  the  poet.  The  whole  verse  may  l>s 
tranelated  as  follows  : 
"  Let  us  drink  on  !  why  wait  for  flambeaux  ?  the  finger  will  serve  for 

daylight." 
The  allusion  is  to  the  custom  of  persons  carousing  in  the  dark  ascertain- 
ing the  quantity  of  wine  poured  out  to  them  by  placing  a  finger  on  the 
brim  of  the  cup.  In  the  present  case  the  poet  represents  the  party,  of 
which  he  was  a  member,  as  overtaken  in  their  revels  by  darkness.  Some 
one  proposes  that  they  should  suspend  or  relax  their  festivity  until 
lights  were  brought.  Against  this  proposal  Alcaeus  remonstrates  in  the 
terms  above  quoted. 

-  :\ratth.  p.  23.  sqq. 


Ch.  V.   §  4.  ALGOUS.       611  B.C.  2G9 

''at  his  birth  with  a  lyre  by  his  father  Jupiter,  as 
"  crowned  with  a  golden  diadem,  and  sent  in  a  chariot 
"  drawn  by  a  pair  of  swans  to  Delphi,  to  be  installed 
"  as  interpreter  of  the  divine  will  to  mankind.  The 
*'  youthful  god,  however,  turns  his  winged  steeds 
"  first  towards  the  land  of  the  Hyperboreans,  where 
"  he  sojourns  a  year.  His  Delphic  worshippers,  dis- 
"  tressed  by  this  delay,  institute  choral  solemnities 
"around  the  tripod  to  propitiate  his  advent,  which 
"  at  length  takes  place  at  midsummer,  amid  the 
"  sonjr  of  nio;htinfrales  and  the  iubilee  of  all  sur- 
"  rounding  nature."  ^  In  a  hymn  to  Cupid  ^,  that 
deity,  in  the  same  spirit  of  elegant  but  fantastic  me- 
taphor, is  transformed  from  the  first-born  of  Chaos 
into  a  son  of  Iris  and  Zephyr.  In  his  hymn  to  Mer- 
cury on  the  other  hand  ^,  Alca3us  adheres  to  the  old 
Homeric  fable  of  the  god's  nativity,  the  lively  humour 
of  which  supplied  a  theme  more  congenial  to  his  taste. 

4.  In  the  form  of  his  composition,  Alcceus  seems  Metres  in- 
to have  been  contented  with  his  own  proper  ^Eolo-  cultivated 
melic    orders   of  lyric   arrangement.     Of  the   more  ^y^i^^eu.. 
lofty  and  elaborate  choral  ode  cultivated  about  this 
period  in  the  Dorian  schools,  no  trace  is  perceptible, 
either  in  his  remains  or  in  the  notices  of  the  antients. 
There  is,  however,  no  poet  of  the  purely  melic  order 
who  possesses  in  a  higher  degree  than    Alcaeus,   the 
art  of  imparting  emphatic  power  to  the  native  suavity 
and    simplicity   of  the    Jllolian    metrical    elements. 
This  is  especially  the  case  with  the  measure  named, 
whether  from  his  invention   or   favourite   use   of  it, 
Alcaic,  in  which  the  otherwise  languid  flow  of  the 
logacedic  catalexis  is  finely  sustained  by  the  blending 

'  Ilimer.  Or.  xiv.  x. ;  frg.  xvii.  sqq.      '  '  Frg.  xxiv. 

^  Paus.  VII.  XX.  2. 


270  BIOGRAPHY    OF    LYRIC    POETS.  Book  ni. 

of  iambic  ^  and  dactylic  elements  in  the  previous 
lines.  A  still  greater  force  and  vivacity  appear  in 
some  of  his  choriambic  systems,  especially  in  the  one 
employed  in  the  description  of  his  armoury.  These 
measures,  accordingly,  are,  as  a  general  rule,  preferred 
by  him  in  compositions  of  a  more  serious  character. 
In  some  of  his  lighter  pieces,  such  as  his  hymn  to 
Mercury^,  he  avails  himself  of  the  Sapphic  strophe, 
so  called  from  the  partiality  shown  for  it  by  his 
distinguished  countrywoman.  Some  grammarians^ 
ascribe  to  Alcseus  the  credit  of  its  "  invention,"  a 
merit  to  which,  in  so  far  as  any  such  notice  can 
be  taken  by  the  letter,  his  partial  priority  of  age 
might  seem  to  entitle  him.  In  this,  the  softest  and 
most  melodious  of  Greek  lyric  measures,  the  gentler 
trochee  is  substituted,  both  at  the  commencement 
and  the  close  of  the  verse,  for  the  more  manly  iambic 
forms  of  the  Alcaic.  In  those  compositions  where  a 
continuous  series  of  the  same  verses  is  preferred  to 
his  customary  forms  of  strophic  arrangement,  Alcaeus 
chiefly  avails  himself  of  dactylic  *  and  choriambic  ^ 
metres,  often  in  prolonged  and  rapid  succession 
where  the  subject  is  of  a  livelier  and  more  festive  or 
excited  character.  In  strains  of  a  terser  more  ener- 
getic tone,  he  tempers  this  volubility,  as  in  his 
strophes,  by  a  greater  admixture  of  iambic  feet.^  In 
more  tender  or  plaintive  subjects  he  also  uses  the 
Ionic   in  similarly  prolonged    succession,    and   with 

1  Conf.  Hor.  Epist.  i.  xix.  28.     "Temperat  Arcliiloclii  musam  pede." 
-  Frgg.  XXII.  XXXIII. 

■^  Marius  Victor,  iv.  p.  2610.  ;  conf.  Hephsest.  Gaisf.  p.  79. 
■'  Frg.  XIV. 

^  Frgg.  V.  XXVIII.  A,   XXX.   sqq.,   liii.  ;    conf.  xl.,  where  a  trochaic 
succession  is  preferred  for  the  Comus. 
«  Frg.  I. 


Ch.V.  §4.  ALCiEUS.       611  B.C.  271 

powerful  effect.^  Of  the  elegy  or  iambic  trimeter 
there  is  no  example  in  his  remains.  Traces,  however, 
occur  of  the  Archilochian  epode  in  passages  of  a  sati- 
rical or  misanthropic  tendency. 

The  high  rank  enjoyed  by  Alcseus  in  the  national 
estimation,  is  evinced  by  the  selection  of  his  works  as 
materials  for  the  editorial  labours  and  special  com- 
mentaries of  the  great  Alexandrian  masters,  Aristo- 
phanes and  Aristarchus  - ;  an  honour  restricted  by 
them  to  but  a  few  standard  monuments  of  native 
genius.  His  poems  were  also  a  favourite  subject  of 
commentary  with  numerous  other  little  less  distin- 
guished grammarians.  Another  strong  proof  of  the 
estimation  in  which  he  was  held,  is  the  extent  to 
which  he  has  been  imitated  and  paraphrased  by 
other  celebrated  lyric  poets,  especially  by  the  one 
who  combined  in  the  highest  degree  the  qualifications 
of  poet  with  those  of  critic.  How  largely  Horace  was 
indebted  to  Alcaeus  is  notorious,  as  v/ellfrom  his  own 
admission,  as  from  the  number  of  passages  of  his 
works  which  can  be  identified  as  translations  or 
paraphrases  from  his  Lesbian  predecessor.  Amono-  the 
more  prominent  instances  may  be  quoted  the  Latin 
poet's  Ode  on  Winter  ^,  and  that  where  the  Roman 
state,  during  the  agitated  times  in  which  he  lived,  is 
compared  to  a  vessel  in  a  stormy  sea.'^  Similar,  or 
still  closer,  appears  to  have  been  the  relation  be- 
tween the  respective  hymns  to  Mercury  of  the  two 
poets. ^    The  ode  where  the  fiery  republican  of  Lesbos 

'  Frg.  Lxix. 

^  Hephffist.  ed.  Gaisf.  p.  134.;  Villois.  Proleg.  ad  Horn.  p.  lix.  ;  conf. 
Matth.  Praef.  ad  Fragm.  p.  5. 

^  Carm.  i.  ix. ;  Epod.  xiii.  ;  conf.  frg.  xxvii. 

*  Carm.  t.  xiv. ;  conf  frg.  ii.  in.  and  Theogn.  671. 

'  Carm.  i.  x.  ;  conf.  Matth.  ad  frg.  xxr. 


272  BIOGRAPHY    OF    LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

exults  ill  his  revels  over  the  downfall  of  the  rival 
political  chief  Myrsilus,  has  also  been  paraphrased  by 
Horace  in  a  more  amiable,  but  less  animated  strain.^ 
There  seem,  in  fact,  to  have  been  few  standard 
compositions  of  Alcasus  but  have  supplied  subject  of 
imitation  to  his  brilliant  disciple  of  Rome.  Hence 
Horace  has  been  occasionally  styled  the  Latin  Al- 
cseus,  with  much  propriety  in  respect  to  all  but  the 
less  amiable  characteristics  of  his  Grecian  prototype. 
The  veneration  of  Horace  for  his  Lesbian  master  is 
equally  marked  in  his  preference  of  the  favourite 
metres  of  Alcceus,  especially  of  the  Alcaic  and  Sap- 
phic strophes.  Even  the  more  celebrated  countrymen 
of  Alcseus,  iEschylus  for  example  and  Aristophanes, 
did  not  disdain  to  borrow  from  him.^  Of  piracy 
from  his  own  predecessors,  the  only  distinct  example 
is  a  passage  of  some  length  paraphrased  from  Hesiod.^ 


SAPPHO.  600  B,  C. 

Sappho.  5.  The  earliest  Greek  authoress,  omitting  the  fa- 
bulous Sibyls  and  Phemonoes,  of  whom  any  men- 
tion occurs,  is  Megalostrata,  the  beloved  of  the  poet 
Alcman,  whom  Athenceus  describes  as  herself  a  poet- 
ess '* ;  but  of  her  works  or  history  no  further  notice 
is  preserved.     The  next  is  Sappho  ^,  admitted  by  her 

^  Carm.  i.  xxxvii.  frg.  iv. ;  conf.  Carrn.  i.  xviii.,  frg.  xxx. 

2  Frg.  xu.,  ^sch.  Pers.  349. ;  frg.  xiii.,  ^sch.  Sept.  in  Th.  388.  ; 
frg.  XXXVI.,  conf.  Matth.  ad  loc. ;  frg.  xiv.,  Aristoph.  Vesp.  1234. 
Tauchn.  ;  frg.  liii.,  Aristopli.  Av.  1409. 

3  Frg.  XXVII.;  conf.  Hes.  Op.  et  D.  580.  sqq.  *  xiii.  p.  600. 

*  Sapphonis  Fragm.  ed.  D.  C.  F.  Neue ;  Gaisf.  Poett.  minn.  Gr.  ed. 
Lips  vol.  111.  p.  291.;  Schneidewin,  Delect.  Poes.  Gr.  §  iii.  p.  289.  ; 
Bergk,  Poett.  lyrr.  Gr.  p.  598.  ;  conf.  Welcker,  Sappho,  Kl.  Scbrifr. 
vol.  I.  p.  116.     The  remains  are  here  cited  according  to  the  number  and 


Cu.  V.  §5.  SAPPHO.       600  B.C.  273 

countrymen  of  every  age  to  be  the  only  female  entitled 
to  rank  on  the  same  level  with  the  more  illustrious  poets 
of  the  male  sex  ;  and  who  may  even  be  said  to  bear 
away  the  prize  from  them  all  in  the  peculiar  branch 
of  composition  which  her  genius  led  her  to  cultivate. 
Hence,  as  the  author  of  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  was 
called  by  preeminence  "  the  poet,"  Sappho  was  ho- 
noured by  the  distinctive  title  of  "  the  poetess ;"  and 
Aristotle  ^  classes  her  in  the  same  high  grade  of 
relative  excellence  as  Homer  and  Archilochus.  Of 
Solon  it  is  related,  that,  on  hearing  for  the  first  time 
the  recital  of  one  of  her  most  esteemed  compositions, 
he  prayed  that  "  he  might  not  see  death  until  he  had 
committed  it  to  memory."'^  So  highly  did  Plato 
value  her  intellectual  as  well  as  her  iinao-inative  en- 
dowments,  that  he  assio-ned  her  the  honours  of  saoje 
as  well  as  poet,  and  familiarly  entitled  her  the  tenth 
Muse.^  Strabo*  describes  her  genius  in  a  tone  of 
mysterious  awe,  as  a  divine  rather  than  a  hunjan  at- 
tribute. By  other  authorities  she  is  characterised 
in  more  figurative  vein  as  the  joint  fosterchild  of 
Venus,  Cupid,  and  the  Graces  ^,  and  as  combining  in 
her  single  person  the  two  natures  of  Muse  and 
Venus  ^ ;  while,  in  one  of  the  numerous  epigrams ''  in 
her  praise,  the  Muses  themselves,  nothing  jealous, 
unite  with  Jupiter  and  Destiny  in  confirming  or  ap- 
proving the  honours  bestowed  on  her  by  her  fellow- 
mortals.  Amid  all  this,  and  much  more  that  miorht 
be  quoted  of  enthusiastic  eulogy,  not  a  word  of  censure 

arrangement  of  Neue,  unless  where  another  collection  is  specified  in  the 
reference. 

'  Rhet.  II.  23.  2  ^lian.  ap.  Stob.xxix.  58. 

3  Phaedr.  p.  235. ;  Anthol.  Pal.  ix.  506.,  conf.  66.  571. 

*  xm.  p.  617.  ^  Antip.  Sid.  in  Anthol.  Pal.  vii.  14. 

«  Denriochar.  in  Anth.  Plan.  iv.  310.  '  Anth.  Pal.  ix.  521, 

VOL.  III.  T 


274  BIOGRAPHY    OF   LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

is  to  be  found  on  any  actual  defect,  either  of  her 
poetical  style  generally,  or  of  any  individual  passage 
of  her  poems.  The  scantiness  of  the  existing  remains 
of  those  poems,  renders  it  the  less  easy  to  judge  how 
far  their  internal  evidence  may  have  justified  this 
boundless  admiration.  If,  however,  the  brilliancy 
and  beauty  of  the  passages  which  have  been  preserved 
may  be  taken  as  a  criterion  of  tlie  general  character 
of  the  collection,  Sappho,  as  the  poet  of  Love  and  the 
Graces,  may  still  be  pronounced  unrivalled  by  any 
successor,  male  or  female,  among  the  numbers  who, 
in  different  ages  and  countries,  have  competed  with 
her  for  the  palm. 

To  this  celebrity  of  her  genius  may  partly  be  as- 
cribed the  obscurity  which  involves  her  history.  In 
addition  to  the  popular  tendency,  in  such  cases,  to 
engraft  fabulous  details  on  a  comparatively  slender 
stock  of  matter  of  fact,  the  controversies  which  arose 
relative  to  the  merits  or  defects  of  her  personal  cha- 
racter, and  the  efforts  made  by  the  different  sections 
of  the  critical  public  who  took  part  in  those  con- 
troversies, to  force  the  data  at  their  disposal  into 
harmony  with  their  own  peculiar  views,  interpose 
serious  obstacles  to  the  success  of  impartial  inves- 
tiiration.  There  can  be  no  better  evidence  of  her 
surpassing  fame  and  popularity,  than  the  fact  of  her 
having  figured  as  a  favourite  heroine  of  the  comic 
drama  of  Athens,  to  a  greater  extent,  it  would  appear, 
than  any  other  historical  personage  upon  record. 
Mention  occurs  of  not  less  than  six  comedies^  under 
the  title  of  Sappho ;  and  her  history,  real  or  imaginary, 

*  By  as  many  authors  :  Amipsias,  Antipbanes,  Amphis,  Ephippus, 
Timocles,  and  Dipliilus.  Meinek.  Fragm.  Comm.  Grasc.  vol.  ii.  p.  707., 
in.  p.  112.  315.  .SSS.  610.,  iv.  p.  409. 


Ch.  V.  §6.  SAPPHO.      600  B.C.  275 

furnished  materials  to  nearly  as  many  more^  with 
which  her  name  is  not  so  specifically  connected. 
While  this,  at  the  best  ambiguous  preeminence  sup- 
plies ample  ground  of  belief,  even  apart  from  other 
authority,  or  the  internal  evidence  of  her  remains, 
that  the  events  of  her  life  or  her  social  habits  offered 
a  fair  opening  for  satirical  animadversion,  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that,  in  the  hands  of  such  censors,  her 
defects  would  be  broadly  caricatured.  Nor  could 
the  judo;ement  of  so  popular  a  tribunal  fail  to  exercise 
influence  upon  that  of  posterity.  This  latter  con- 
sideration, however,  has  led  her  more  enthusiastic 
modern  admirers  and  apologists  into  the  opposite 
extreme,  of  ascribinii-  all  the  less  favourable  features 
of  her  portrait  to  tlie  above  polluted  source,  in  their 
efforts  to  convert  her  into  an  ideal  model  of  purity 
and  moral  excellence.  It  will  be  the  object  of  the 
followino;  review  of  her  life  and  character  to  steer  a 
just  medium  between  these  two  extremes,  by  an  im- 
]~>artial  analysis  of  the  existing  materials  for  guiding 
the  judgement,  whether  supplied  by  herself  or  de- 
rived from  other  sources. 

6.  The  age  of  Sappho  is  established,  with  more  or  iier  wrth- 
less  accuracy,  by  its  partial  coincidence  with  the  still  famity,  and 
better  defined  epoch  of  Alcasus  and  Pittacus ;  and 
besides  other  incidental  synchronisms,  by  a  general 
concurrence  of  authorities."  According  to  these 
data,  the  more  brilliant  portion  of  her  career  ma}?^  be 
placed  in  the  first    half  of   the  sixth  century  b.  c, 

I  Two  under  the  title  of  Phaon ;  one  by  Plato,  the  other  by 
Antiphanes,  Meinek.  op.  cit.  vol.  ii.  p.  672.,  iii.  p.  124. ;  one  under  the 
title  of  Leucadia  by  Menander,  Meinek.  vol.  iv.  p.  158. ;  and  another 
entitled  Leucadius,  by  Antiphanes,  Meinek.  vol.  iii.  p.  78. 

^  Athen.  xiii.  p.  599.;  Strab.  xiii.  p.  617.;  conf.  Neue,  p.  3.;  Clint. 
Fast.  Hell.  vol.  I.  p.  225. 

T  2 


social  rela- 
tions. 


27G  BIOGRAPHY    OF    LYIUC    POETS.  Book  III. 

while  her  cliildhood  and  early  youth  belong  to  the 
close  of  the  seventh.  Her  birthplace,  according  to 
the  more  trustworthy  authorities,  was  Mitylene,  the 
metropolis  of  the  isle  of  Lesbos.  Others  make  her  a 
native  of  the  neighbouring  town  of  Eresus.  ^  It  is 
certain  that  her  family  was  of  Mitylene,  and  of  some 
rank  in  that  state  ;  one  of  her  brothers,  called  Lari- 
chus  -,  having  held  the  post  of  cupbearer  in  the  Pry- 
taneum,  an  office  only  conferred  on  youths  of  the 
aristocratic  order.  Her  father's  name  was  Scaman- 
dronymus  ^,  her  mother's  Cleis."*  If  Ovid  may  be 
trusted,  she  was  left  an  orphan  when  six  years  old.''' 
The  names  of  three  of  her  brothers  are  also  recorded  : 
Charaxus,  Larichus  above  mentioned,  and  Eury- 
gyius.^  Of  the  youngest  of  the  three  nothing  is 
known.  Cliaraxus,  as  Herodotus  and  others  relate, 
was  a  trader  in  Lesbian  wines,  and  obtained  noto- 
riety by  his  amour  with  the  celebrated  Thracian 
courtesan  Rhodopis,  then  a  slave  in  the  Greek  colony 
of  Naucratis  in  Lower  Egypt,  to  which  port  he  was 
ill  the  habit  of  resorting.  Such  was  the  violence  of 
his  passion  for  this  woman,  as  to  induce  him  to  pur- 
chase her  from  her  master,  set  her  free,  and  lavish 
his  substance  in  her  maintenance,  or  even,  in  some 
accounts,  to  espouse  her.  His  sister  was  greatly 
scandalised  and  incensed  at  his  conduct,  and  gave 
vent  to  her  indignation  in  an  ode  composed  for  the 
occasion.     This  affair ",  by  reference  to  chronological 

'  Suid.  et  Eudocia  v.  ^aircpw ;  Discorid.  in  Anth.  Pal.  vii.  407. 
2  Athen.  x.  p.  424.  ;  Schol.  Bekk.  II.  xx.  234  ;  Eustath.  ad  loc.  p.  1205. 
'  Herodot.  ii.  cxxxv. ;  ^lian.  V.  H.  xii.  xix.     For  the  multitude  of 
other  fanciful  titles,  or  varieties  of  the  same  title,  see  Neue,  p.  1. 

*  Suid.  V.  2aw<pw ;  Epigr.  ap.  Schol.  Pind.  Boeckh,  p.  8. 

*  Ovid.  Heroid.  xv.  61.  ^  Suid.  loc.  cit. 
^  Herodot.    ii.    cxxxiv,    cxxxv. ;  Strab.    xvii.  p.   808.  ;    Athen.    xiii. 

p.  596.;  Ovid.  Hei'oid.  xv.  63.  sqq.,  117. ;  Suid.  vv.  Aiauwus  et  'id^fimv. 


Ch.Y.  §6.  SAPPHO.       GOO  B.C.  277 

data  as  well  as  to  the  terms  of  Ovid's  allusion  to  it, 
would  appear  to  have  taken  place  at  a  comparatively 
late  period  of  Sappho's  life.  Her  brother  conse- 
quently, may  be  presumed  to  have  been  greatly  her 
junior.  The  same  Latin  poet,  who,  there  can  be  no 
reasonable  doubt,  repeats  the  accredited  version  of 
the  story,  describes  the  young  man  as  having  been 
soon  after  reduced  to  penury  by  his  folly  and  extra- 
vagance, aTid  as  having  again  betaken  himself,  as 
master  of  a  small  vessel,  to  commercial  enterprise,  or 
perhaps,  on  a  less  charitable  construction  of  the  pas- 
sage ^,  to  piracy,  in  order  to  restore  his  fortunes.  So 
mortally  offended  was  he  however  by  the  interference 
of  his  sister,  as  to  have  broken  off  all  connexion  with 
her,  and  repelled  her  subsequent  advances  for  a  re- 
newal of  friendly  intercourse.^ 

Her  family  affairs  seem  to  have  formed  frequent 
subject  of  treatment  in  her  works.  In  various  pas- 
sages of  her  lost  poems  she  complimented  her  other 
brother  Larichus,  on  his  graceful  performance  of  the 
duties  attached  to  his  Prytanean  office  ^ ;  and  in 
several  remaining  texts,  she  appears  to  address  or 
allude  to  her  mother,  and  to  a  favourite  or  only 
daughter.^ 

To  the  later  Athenian  dramatists  we  are  indebted, 
among  other  burlesque  details  of  her  popular  bio- 
graphy, for  the  legends  of  her  loves  with  Archilochus, 
Anacreon,  and  Hipponax.  The  former  of  these  poets 
was  dead  before  she  was  born.  The  two  latter  were 
not  born,  probably  at  the  period  of  her  death.  All 
three  however,   in   the    fantastic  mythology    of  the 

'  Op.  cit.  60.  2  Ovid.  Her.  xv.  67.  117. 

^  Athen.  x.  p.  425.  ••  Frgg.  xxxii.  xxviii.  lxxvi. 

T    3 


278  BIOGRAPHY    OF   LYRIC    TOETS.  Book  III. 

Comic  Muse,  figure  on  the  xittic  stage  as  her  contem- 
poraries and  associates.^ 

•  Whether  Sappho  was  ever  married  is  doubtful, 
but  the  balance  of  evidence  is  strongly  on  the  negative 
side  of  the  question.  She  is  familiarly  alluded  to  by 
Horace  and  other  classics  as  the  "  Lesbian  maiden  ;  "^ 
nor  is  there  any  notice  of  a  husband  but  on  a  single 
recent  and  very  questionable  authority,  where  the 
broadly  indecent  etymology  of  the  names,  both  of  the 
individual  on  whom  the  honour  is  conferred  and  of 
his  birthplace,  sufficiently  proves  them  to  be  fictitious. 
Both  titles  are  inventions,  there  can  be  little  doubt,  of 
the  comic  authors  above  alluded  to,  satirically  re- 
flecting on  the  weaker  points  of  Sappho's  character.^ 
How  far  the  circumstance  of  her  having  had  a  daugh- 
ter can  be  considered  as  admissible  evidence  of  her 
having  been  married,  is  a  point  the  settlement  of 
which  must  depend  on  the  closer  inquiry  into  her 
moral  habits  to  be  instituted  in  the  sequel.  That 
such  was  the  fact  however,  is  stated  on  respectable 
authority."*  The  name  ascribed  to  the  maiden  is 
Cleis,  the  same  as  that  of  Sappho's  reputed  mother. 
As  this  identity  of  the  two  appellatives  is  in  harmony 
with  the  prevailing  Greek  custom  of  calling  children 
after  their  grandfathers  or  grandmothers,  there  seems 
no  reason  to  doubt  that  the  young  female  addressed 
by  her,  as  already  mentioned,  in  terras  of  parental 

'  Athen.  xt.  p.  487.,  xiii.  p.  599.  In  the  case  of  Anacreon,  the  con- 
fusion rests  partly  on  an  ode  addressed  by  him  to  a  favourite  Lesbian 
maiden,  supposed  by  later  superficial  critics  to  be  Sappho.  Chamaeleon 
ap.  Athen.  xiii.  p.  599. ;  conf.  Hermesian.  ap.  Athen.  xiii.  p.  598.  sq. 

-  Carm.  iv.  ix.  12. 

3  Suid.  T.  '2a7r(pd\     See  Infra,  p.  30] .  note. 

*  Max.  Tyr.  Diss.  viii.  p.  96.  Davis  ;  Suid.  v.  SaTr^w  ;  Ovid.  Iler.  xv. 
70.  120. 


Cii.  V.  §6.  SAPPHO.      600  B.C.  279 

endearinent,  under  the  title  Cle'is,  in  several  extant 
passages  ^,  was  her  own  child. 

The  habits  of  Sappho,  social  or  domestic,  whether 
as  described  by  her  biographers  or  illustrated  by  her 
own  works,  were  certainly  little  consistent  with  those 
which  the  laws  either  of  Greek  or  modern  Euroj)ean 
morality  connect  with  the  character  or  duties  of  a 
married  woman.  It  appears,  by  reference  to  those 
combined  sources,  that  the  brilliancy  of  her  talents 
and  the  charm  of  her  conversation  had  collected 
around  her  residence  at  Mitylene,  from  all  parts  of 
Greece,  a  number  of  females  of  tastes  and  pursuits 
akin  to  her  own,  who  formed  an  association  or  club 
of  ladies  devoted  to  the  pursuit  of  every  species  of 
refined  and  elegant  pleasure,  sensual  oi*  intellectual. 
The  younger  members  of  the  sisterhood  are  also  re- 
presented as  the  pupils  of  their  more  advanced  com- 
panions, especially  of  the  poetess,  in  the  arts  of  music 
and  poetry,  and,  above  all,  it  would  seem,  in  that  of 
love.  This  is  an  institution  to  which  no  parallel 
offers  itself  in  any  other  period  of  Grecian  history. 
Its  precise  character,  or  that  of  the  relation  subsist- 
ing among  its  members,  has  accordingly  supplied  the 
commentators  on  Sappho's  life  and  character  with 
matter  for  a  copious  variety  of  speculative  discussion, 
to  which  attention  will  be  directed  in  the  sequel. 

Of  the  extent  to  which  Sappho  was  herself  brought 
under  the  sway  of  the  tender  passion,  which  in  one 
shape  or  other  formed  the  theme,  with  little  excep- 
tion, of  her  collective  works,  sufficient  evidence  exists 
in  her  only  remaining  entire  composition,  the  first 
ode  in  the  published  collections.  She  there  describes 
herself,  in  the  most  touching  and  impassioned  strains, 

^  Frg.  Lxxvi. ;  conf.  xxviii. 
T  4 


280  BIOGRAPHY    OF    LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

ns  tlie  victim  of  an  unrequited  love,  and  implores  the 
aid  of  Venus  to  ease  her  pangs  by  melting  the  heart 
of  the  obdurate  or  inconstant  object  of  her  affection. 
At  tlie  close  of  the  address,  it  is  also  implied  that 
this  was  not  the  first  occasion  on  which  the  goddess, 
either  on  account  of  the  same  or  a  different  lover, 
had  been  similarly  and  successfully  invoked. 
Her  love  for  '^ •  '^^^  pcrsou  to  whom  this  ode  is  supposed  to 
phaon.  Her  refer,  or  who  at  least  obtained,  in  the  popular  tra- 

Leucadian  ,  . 

leap.  dition,  the  chief  and  longest  sway  over  the  affections 

of  Sappho,  was  a  Lesbian  youth  called  Phaon,  distin- 
guished for  his  personal  attractions  and  irresistible 
power  over  the  female  heart.  For  a  time  he  is  de- 
scribed as  having  corresponded  to  her  ardour ;  but 
after  cohabiting  with  her  during  some  years,  he 
deserted  her,  leaving  her  in  a  state  of  despair,  for 
which  the  only  remedy  that  suggested  itself  was  that 
habitually  resorted  to  in  such  cases,  a  leap  from  the 
summit  of  the  Leucadian  promontory  into  the  sea. 
That  she  actually  carried  this  purpose  into  effect 
Avas  the  popular  opinion  of  antiquity,  from  the  age 
at  least  of  Meiiander  downwards,  and  seems  to  have 
passed  current  as  an  authentic  fact,  even  with  the 
more  intelligent  autliorlties  ^ ;  although  the  result, 
whether  as  regards  her  mental  or  bodily  welfare,  is 
not  distinctly  recorded. 

Both  these  points  in  the  history  of  tlie  poetess,  her 
love  for  Phaon  and  her  leap  from  the  Leucadian  cliff", 
have  been  questioned,  with  more  or  less  plausibility, 
by  distinguished  critics  of  the  present  age.  In  re- 
spect to  the  first  it  has  been  denied,  not  only  that 
Phaon  was   the   name   of  the  hero    of  this  tragical 

'  Strab.  X.  p.  452. ;  Menand.  ap.  Strab.  loc.  cit. ;  Ovid.  Heroid.  xv. ; 
conf.  alios  apud  Neue,  p.  4. 


Cii.  V.  §7.  SAPPHO.       600  B.C.  281 

drama,  but  that  such  a  person  ever  existed.  Certain 
it  is,  that  there  was  a  mythical  personage  of  this 
name,  whose  celebrity  was  more  immediately  con- 
nected with  the  isle  of  Lesbos.^  This  fabulous  Phaon 
is  described  as  a  Mitylenean  youth,  who  by  his  own 
amiable  qualities,  or  by  certain  services  which  he  had 
been  fortunate  enough  to  render  to  Venus,  so  in- 
gratiated himself  with  tliat  goddess,  as  to  have  been 
endowed  by  her  with  surpassing  beauty,  and  with 
irresistible  power  over  the  affections  and  persons  of 
women,  in  whatever  mode  he  chose  to  exert  it.  It  has 
accordingly  been  urged,  that  "  the  selection  of  this 
hero's  name  by  the  Lesbians  as  the  title  of  the  favoured 
lover  of  Sappho,  herself  their  native  type  of  female 
loveliness,  would,  in  the  absence  of  any  authentic  re- 
cord of  that  lover's  real  appellative,  be  quite  consistent 
with  the  spirit  of  Greek  literary  legend  in  such  cases." 
To  this  view  however  it  has  been  objected  by  the 
advocates  of  the  real  personality  of  Phaon,  that  the 
story  of  his  mythical  namesake  dates  from  so  very 
recent  a  period,  and  is  transmitted  on  such  very  ques- 
tionable authority^,  as  to    leave  abundant  room  for 

1  -Lilian.  V.  H.  xii.  xviii. ;  Plin.  H.N.  xxii.  viii. ;  Serv.  ad  Virg.  2En. 
III.  279. ;  conf.  Neue,  Fragm.  S;ippli.  p.  6. 

^  That  apparently  of  the  Attic  comedians,  by  Aviiom  the  affairs  of 
Sappho,  with  the  lover's  leap  and  its  mythology,  were  jointly  burlesqued 
in  dramas  of  which  Phaon  was  the  hero-  He  seems  to  have  been  repre- 
sented by  these  authorities  as  having  been  involved  in  much  inconvenience 
by  the  boon  conferred  on  him  by  Venus,  owing  to  the  impossibility  of 
accommodating  the  numerous  claims  on  his  amorous  attentions  ;  and  as 
having  undertaken  a  journey  into  the  wilds  of  Acarnania,  in  order  to 
avoid  the  importunities  of  the  Lesbian  ladies.  Here  he  occupied  himself 
in  founding  the  temple  of  Apollo  Leucas.  He  was,  however,  pursued 
into  his  retreat  by  crowds  of  his  admirers  ;  and  those  whose  advances  he 
still  repelled,  Sappho  probably  among  the  rest,  threw  themselves  over 
the  cliff  into  the  sea.  Conf.  Meinek.  Fragm.  Com.  Gr<ec.  vol.  ii.  p.  672. 
sqq..  III.  p.  124.,  iv.  p.  lo9. 


282  BIOGRAPHY    OF    LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

doubt  whether  it  may  not  be  allowable  to  reverse  the 
above  explanation  of  the  case,  and  assume  the  fabulous 
favourite  of  Venus  to  have  derived  his  origin  from 
the  historical  notices  of  the  faithless  lover  of  Sappho.^ 
Here  again  it  is  objected,  and  with  some  reason,  on 
the  sceptical  side,  that  "  there  is  no  trace,  either  in 
the  remains  of  Sappho  or  in  the  citations  from  her 
text,  of  her  ever  having  herself  mentioned  the  name 
'  Phaon  '  in  her  poems.  Had  she  so  mentioned  it,  there 
could  have  been  no  opening  it  is  urged,  for  the  doctrine 
of  certain  sophistical  commentators  ^,  that  the  lover  of 
Phaon  was  not  the  poetess,  but  a  purely  fictitious 
courtesan  of  the  same  name,  whom  those  sophists 
themselves  called  into  existence,  as  a  sort  of  scape- 
goat, on  whom  they  were  wont  to  fasten  any 
points  in  the  popular  history  of  the  real  Sappho 
wdiich  did  not  square  with  their  ideal  estimate  of 
her  character."  The  whole  question  however  is,  in 
truth,  in  its  vital  bearings  on  the  history  of  the 
poetess,  very  much  a  dispute  of  words.  If,  as  appears 
from  Sappho's  own  testimony,  she  was  the  victim 
of  an  unrequited  passion,  it  matters  little  to  the 
real  substance  of  this  point  of  her  biography  or 
character,  whether  the  name  by  which  the  object 
of  that  passion  was  known  to  posterity  was  a  real  or 
a  fictitious  one. 

The  Leucadian  leap  of  Sappho,  though  ranked  by 
various  modern  commentators,  like  the  name  of  her 
lover,  among  the  mythical  elements  of  her  biography, 
will  not  perhaps  be  found,  on  a  critical  estimate  of 

*  Neue,  p.  6.;  Welcker,  Kleine  Sclir.  vol.  ii.  p.  135.  sqq.,  who  very 
properly  rejects  O  Miiller's  theory  of  a  connexion  between  Phaon  and 
Adonis. 

-  Nympliis  ap.  Athen.  xni.  p.  596.;  JElian.  Y.  H.  xii.  xix.  ;  Suld.  v. 
*oa-;' ;  conf.  Neue,  p.  3.  sqq. 


Cu.V.  §8.  SAPPHO.       COO  B.C.  283 

the  circumstances  connected  with  it,  to  offer  any  so 
serious  ground  of  scepticism.  It  will  be  proper,  in 
order  the  better  to  judge  in  this  obscure  matter,  to 
take  a  general  view  of  the  origin  and  history  of  the 
*'  Lover's  Leap,"  real  or  ftibulous,  as  illustrated  by 
the  more  accredited  authorities  on  the  subject. 

8.  The  Leucadian  cliff,  or  Cape  Leucas,  which  origin  of 
derived  its  name  from  its  brilliant  whiteness,  and  cadian  rite, 
imparted  that  name  to  the  neighbouring  region,  was 
the  site  of  a  temple  of  Apollo.  Human  sacrifice,  it  is 
certain,  formed  part  of  the  early  barbarous  worship  of 
tliat  deity,  in  his  primitive  character  of  Destroyer  or 
Avenger  ;  and  the  rite  was  maintained,  for  the  most 
part  in  a  figurative  or  otherwise  modified  form,  in 
many  Greek  sanctuaries  up  to  a  late  period.^  The 
celebrated  Leucadian  leap  was,  in  fact,  in  its  origin, 
as  it  appears  ever  afterwards  chiefly  to  have  remained, 
a  sacrifice  to  Nemesis  rather  than  to  Venus,  by  the 
precipitation  of  a  human  victim  of  Apollo  from  the 
sunnnit  of  the  cliff  into  the  sea.^  Of  the  mode  of 
selectino^  these  victims  in  remote  aojes  nothino-  is 
recorded.  At  the  period  however,  from  which  the 
first  notices  of  the  rite  have  been  transmitted,  there 
can  be  no  doubt  of  its  having  been  already  stripped, 
in  whole  or  in  part,  of  its  more  inhuman  features. 
The  victims,  where  compulsory,  were  criminals  whose 
lives  were  already  forfeited  to  the  law  ;  while  in  the 
case  of  voluntary  devotees,  whether  instigated  by 
enthusiasm,  love  of  gain,  or  other  motives,  precautions 
were  taken  to  prevent  the  more  fatal  consequences  of 
the  exploit.     Buoyant  substances,  feathers,  bladders, 

1  Miill.  Dor.  ii.  viii.  2.,  vol.  i.  p.  326.  ;  Smith,  Diet,  of  Antiq.  v.  Thar- 
gelia. 

^  Miill.  Dor.  ii.  ii.  10.,  vol.  i.  p.  231.  sq. ;  Hardion  sur  le  Sault  de 
Leucadc,  in  Mem.  de  I'Acad.  des  Inscr.  vol.  vii.  p.  245. 


284  BIOGRAPHY   OF    LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

and  the  like,  were  fastened  to  their  bodies,  in  order 
to  break  the  rapidity  of  the  fall,  and  boats  were 
stationed  below  to  rescue  them  from  the  waves. ^ 

Of  the  circumstances  which  led  to  the  connexion 
of  this  custom  with  the  worship  of  Venus,  there  is  no 
distinct  account ;  but  the  existence  of  such  a  connexion 
is  as  well  attested  as  that  of  the  ceremony  in  its 
primitive  form.  The  antients,  as  usual  in  such  cases, 
trace  the  rite  in  both  its  forms  to  a  fabulous  origin  ; 
and  Jupiter,  Venus  herself,  Deucalion,  and  various 
other  mythological  personages  of  inferior  note,  are 
reported  to  have  sanctioned  it  by  their  practice.^ 
The  earliest  author  in  whose  works  allusion  occurs 
to  "  the  Lover's  Leap  "  is  Stesichorus,  one  of  whose 
odes,  as  we  have  seen,  celebrated  a  beautiful  nymph 
named  Calyce,  who  had  adopted  this  mode  of  ter- 
minating, with  her  own  existence,  the  pangs  of  a 
hopeless  but  honourable  passion.^  The  next  female 
victim  in  the  list  is  Sappho.  From  this  period  down- 
wards, various  and  apparently  authentic  cases  arc- 
recorded,  though  not  generally,  certainly  not  in- 
variably, with  the  same  fatal  result  as  in  the  in- 
stance of  the  unfortunate  Calyce.  AVith  the  devotees 
of  Venus,  as  of  Apollo,  there  were  two  classes  of 
leap,  differing  in  danger  and  fatality  as  in  motive 
or  object.  Li  the  one  case,  the  exploit  Avas  per- 
formed in  its  naked  reality  by  persons  to  whom 
life  was  rendered  odious  by  disappointed  love, 
and  who  were  impelled  by  a  fervid  and  enthusiastic 
temperament  to  this  popular  and  brilliant  act  of 
suicidal  desperation.     Li  the  other  case  the  leap  was 

1  Strab.  X.  p.  452. 

-  Ptoleni.  Hepli.  vii. ;  conf.  Ov.  Her.  167.  sqq. 
;  3  Conf.  Charon  Lamps,  ap.  Plut.  de  Virt.  ]\ful.  p.  252. 


Cii.V.  §9.  SAPPHO.       600  B.C.  ^85 

undertaken,  with  the  modifications  or  safeguards 
above  described,  as  a  remedy  for  the  amorous  disease. 
It  Avas  supposed  in  this  latter  case,  and  perhaps  witli 
reason,  that  apart  from  the  sacred  influence  of  the 
site  and  its  associations,  the  revulsion  of  feeling  and 
temperament  consequent  on  the  plunge,  the  terror, 
and  the  excitement  of  the  whole  ceremony,  would  be 
such  as  to  banish  the  dominant  passion  from  the 
breast,  and  give  place  to  the  sway  of  reason  or  other 
counteracting  influences.  Hence  those  who  had  de- 
rived benefit  from  the  experiment  in  one  instance 
were  sometimes  led  to  repeat  it.  One  Maces  of 
Buthrotum,  a  town  on  the  neighbouring  coast  of 
Epirus,  is  said  to  have  had  recourse  to  it  no  less  than 
four  times,  which  obtained  him  the  surname  of  Leu- 
copetras,  or  Whitccliff'.  The  person  of  greatest  ce- 
lebrity, next  to  Sappho,  among  those  reported  to  have 
actually  sought  and  met  their  death  by  the  perform- 
ance of  the  exploit  in  its  naked  suicidal  form,  was 
Artemisia  of  Halicarnassus,  ally  of  Xerxes  in  his 
invasion  of  Greece.  Among  otiier  less  celebrated 
devotees  are  mentioned  Nicostratus,  a  comic  poet ; 
Diodorus,  a  flute-player ;  and  Charinus,  an  iambo- 
grapher ;  the  latter  of  whom  is  also  said  to  have 
perished.^ 

9.  Although  few,  if  any,  of  these  cases  may  be  so  Evidence 
distinctly  attested  by  contemporary  authorities  as  to  ^^^J^^^ 
place  them  on  the  footino;  of  historical  facts,  yet  in  sappho's 

^  ,  ^  ,  '  "'  perform- 

several  of  them,  the  internal  evidence  of  the  persons,  anceofi^ 
times,   or   circumstances,    is   such    as,  together  with 
the    universal    belief   of   antiquity,    to    destroy    any 
legitimate   ground    of   scepticism.     Fictions    of  this 
nature  might,    in    the    ordinary  course   of  mythical 

'  rtolem.  llepli.  loc.  cit. ;  Plut.  de  Virt.  Mul.  loc.  cit. 


28G  BIOGRAPHY    OF    LYRIC    POETS.  Boor  III. 

invention,  come  to  be  generally  received  in  the  case 
of  Snppho  or  Artemisia,  not  to  mention  Deucalion 
or  Calyce ;  but  it  is  less  easy  to  see  how  sucli  stories 
should,  without  some  basis  of  reality,  have  acquired 
currency  or  credit  in  regard  to  a  Nicostratus,  a 
Charinus,  or  a  Maces,  obscure  individuals  of  com- 
paratively low  periods  of  Greek  or  Roman  history. 
There  might  be  more  plausibility  in  the  rejection 
even  of  these  cases,  did  they  involve  anything  re- 
pugnant to  the  spirit  of  antient  manners  or  religion; 
but  the  ascertained  fact  of  a  similar  practice  having 
prevailed  in  honour  of  Apollo  obviates  any  scruple 
upon  this  head.  Without  special  reference  therefore 
to  individual  cases,  it  were  a  somewhat  rash,  and, 
it  is  apprehended,  uncritical  stretch  of  scepticism, 
summarily  to  banish  to  the  realms  of  fiction,  as  some 
modern  inquirers  have  proposed,  a  practice  so  inti- 
mately associated  both  with  the  historical  convictions 
and  the  poetical  sympathies  of  the  Greek  nation  from 
the  earliest  to  the  latest  age  of  classical  antiquity. 

Admitting  then  the  existence  of  the  practice,  and 
that  there  is,  as  cannot  be  denied,  a  greater  body  of 
antient  testimony  in  favour  of  Sappho  than  of  any 
other  votary  of  the  Cliif,  the  question  occurs :  Was 
there  anything  in  the  character  or  habits  of  this 
poetess,  whether  as  described  by  her  native  biogra- 
phers, or  as  illustrated  by  her  own  works,  which  places 
her  beyond  the  category,  above  referred  to,  of  per- 
sons likely  to  be  impelled  by  a  fervid  temperament 
and  the  impatience  of  disappointed  love  to  the  fatal 
freak  ?  The  read}^  answer  to  this  question,  in  every 
impartial  quarter  must  be,  that  upon  the  whole,  it 
were  difficult  to  select  from  the  annals  of  female 
cliaracter  a  heroine  combininir  more  of  the  attributes 


Cu.V.  §0.  SAPl'IIO.       GOO  B.C.  287 

calculated  to  verify,  in  her  particular  case,  the  sub- 
stance at  least  of  the  popular  tradition. 

As  a  counterpoise  to  this  preponderance  of  testi- 
mony on  the  affirmative  side,  appeal  has  been  made 
to  the  absence  of  Sappho's  name  from  the  list  of 
Ptolemy  Hephasstion,  the  author  who  has  collected 
the  most  numerous  notices  of  the  other  performers 
of  the  rite.  This  circumstance  has  been,  and  very 
naturally  no  doubt,  adduced  as  evidence  that  her 
claims  -were  not  recognised  by  that  compiler.  Even 
admitting  him  to  have  rejected  them,  it  Avould  yet 
hardly  be  reasonable  to  prefer  the  authority  of  He- 
phaestion  to  that  of  Strabo  or  Ovid,  or  to  the  other- 
wise unanimous  voice  of  native  tradition.  Perhaps 
however  a  different  inference,  even  in  the  case  of  He- 
phaestion,  may  be  more  reasonable.  In  eveiy  age  of 
Greek  antiquity,  from  the  days  at  least  of  Menander 
downwards,  the  Leap  of  Sappho  was,  as  it  has 
since  remained,  the  most  celebrated  and  notorious  in 
the  whole  series  of  such  exploits.  It  is  the  one  con- 
sequently, of  which  any  professed  writer  on  the  subject 
was  least  likely  to  be  ignorant ;  the  one  concerning 
which  more  especially  a  second-rate  sophist  of  later 
times,  who  with  all  due  gravity  enumerates  Jupiter, 
Venus,  and  Deucalion  among  the  votaries  of  the 
Cliff,  was  least  likely,  in  the  face  of  such  authorities 
as  Menander,  Strabo,  and  Ovid,  to  feel  sceptical. 
The  only  apology  therefore  which  suggests  itself, 
for  what  must  be  considered  but  as  a  piece  of  ec- 
centricity or  affectation  on  the  part  of  Hephaestion, 
is  to  suppose  that  Sappho,  the  acknowledged  type  or 
eponyme  in  later  ages  of  this  act  of  amorous  despe- 
ration, has  been  tacitly  assumed  by  him  as  the  centre 
or  pivot  around  which  all  the  others  were  arranged 


288  BIOGRArilY    OF    LYIUC    POETS.  Book  III. 

in  the  way  of  illustration  or  corollary.  It  has  also 
been  urged,  that  the  tradition  concerning  Sappho 
leaves  it  uncertain  whether  she  perished  or  survived. 
Admitting  it  to  be  so,  preciseness  of  circumstantial 
detail  is  no  very  sound  criterion  of  the  element  of 
truth  in  popular  tradition.  But  altliough  there  may 
be  no  distinct  statement  to  that  effect,  the  sreneral 
tenor  of  the  existing  notices  would  imply,  that  the 
leap  from  the  Leucadian  cliff  was  the  last  act  of 
Sappho's  life.  Here  another  objection  has  been  dis- 
covered in  her  advanced  age  ;  for  by  reference  to 
the  balance  of  chronological  data  above  given,  her 
birth  can  hardly  be  brought  down  much  lower  than 
about  620  B.C. ;  and.  as  the  adventure  of  her  brother 
Charaxus  with  the  courtesan  Rhodopis,  which  she 
survived,  is  placed  by  Herodotus  in  the  early  part  of 
the  reign  of  Amasis,  king  of  Egypt  (569-526  B.C.), 
she  could  not,  on  this  basis,  have  been  much  under 
fifty  years  of  age  at  the  period  of  her  supposed  sui- 
cide. Even  here  however,  the  tradition  would  at 
least  be  entitled  to  the  merit  of  consistency.  All 
accounts  concur  in  representing  the  poetess,  at  the 
period  of  her  last  fatal  love,  as  no  longer  youthful, 
and  her  age  consequently  as  one  of  the  obstacles  to 
the  gratification  of  her  passion.^     In  a  female  of  her 

^  Oviil.  Heroid.  xv.  85.  It  may  further  be  remarked,  tliat  the  age  of 
the  Thracian  courtesan,  on  which  the  chronology  of  Sappho's  leaji,  as 
above  estimated,  is  made  to  depend,  is  still  less  well  ascertained  than  the 
age  of  Sappho  herself.  The  history  of  the  former  heroine  is  seasoned 
with  a  still  more  copious  ingredient  of  fable  than  that  of  Sappho  ;  and 
several  modern  commentators  have  been  inclined,  upon  reasonable 
grounds,  to  prefer  the  tradition  of  ^^lian  (Var.  Hist.  xiii.  xxxiii.)  to 
that  of  Herodotus,  and  place  the  settlement  of  Rhodopis  in  Egypt  during 
the  reign  of  Psanimetichus,  the  predecessor  of  Amasis.  The  real  name 
of  this  celebrated  beauty  appears  to  have  been  Doricha ;  Rhodopis,  or 
"Rosy  cheek,"  her  popular  surname.  Athen.  xiii.  p.  596.;  conf.  Ncue, 
op.  cit.  p.  2.  sq. 


Ch.  V.  §  10.  SAPPHO.       600  B.C.  289 

temperament  and  habits,  an  additional  lustrum  or 
two  would  make  but  little  difference  in  the  ardour  of 
that  passion,  or  in  the  shock  attending  a  disappoint- 
ment. Upon  the  whole  therefore,  without  subscrib- 
ing, amid  the  general  obscurity  and  singularity  of 
the  case,  an  unqualified  acquiescence  to  the  received 
account  of  the  Leucadian  death  of  the  poetess,  the 
impartial  critic  must,  at  least,  pronounce  the  balance 
of  evidence  to  be  on  the  affirmative  side. 

In  the  Parian  chronicle  ^  Sappho  is  mentioned  as 
having,  at  a  certain  period  of  her  life,  fled  from 
Lesbos  to  Sicily.  The  precise  date  assigned  to  this 
event  is  lost,  owing  to  the  dilapidation  of  the  monu- 
ment ;  but  its  position  was  between  Olyrnp.  xliv. 
and  XL VII.  (604 — 588  b.  c.)  Tlie  notice  is  not  cor- 
roborated by  any  subsidiary  authority  ;  but  from  the 
mode  in  which  it  is  introduced,  as  one  of  a  series 
of  standard  popular  epochs,  it  must  allude  to  some 
generally  known  and  admitted  vicissitude  in  the  life 
of  the  poetess.  As  Ovid,  in  her  last  imploring  letter 
to  Phaon  ^  previous  to  her  self-destruction,  makes 
her  address  her  lover  as  resident  in  Sicil}',  it  seems 
probable  that  by  both  the  chronicle  and  the  Latin 
poet  Phaon  was  understood,  on  proving  faithless,  to 
have  retired  to  Sicily,  and  to  have  been  pursued 
thither  by  his  disconsolate  mistress. 

10.  Sappho  is  described,  by  the  only  authors  who  Herper- 
have  transmitted  any  distinct  notices  on  the  subject^,  pearlnc^e 
as   not    distino-uished    for   personal    beautv ;    but   as  moral  cha. 

1  •  1       r>    1       I        •  11  1    '■'»ctei,  and 

snort  m  stature,  and  ot  dark,  it  may   be  understood  habits, 
swarthy,  complexion.     The   laudatory  commonplace 

1  Epoch.  XXXVI.  2  Heroiil.  xv.  11.  51. 

^  Max.  Tyr.  Dissert,  viii.  p.  90.  Dav.  ;  Ovid.  HeroTd.  xv.  31.  sq. 
VOL.  III.  U 


20O  BIOGRAPHY    OF    LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

of  kale,  or  "  fair,"  which  Plato  and  others  incidentally 
connect  with  her  name,  no  way  militates  against  this 
account,  as  implying  nothing  more,  perhaps  less, 
than  does  the  English  phrase  by  which  the  Greek 
epithet  has  above  been  rendered,  and  which  is  as 
frequently  bestowed  in  familiar  usage  on  plain  as 
on  handsome  women. ^  The  terms  in  which  AlcaBUS 
addresses  her,  in  a  passage  already  quoted  in  the  life 
of  that  poet,  and  which  have  been  also  adduced  as 
evidence  of  her  personal  charms,  do  not,  if  fairly  in- 
terpreted, appear  more  favourable  to  that  view.  He 
describes  her  simply  as  "  dark-haired  "  and  "  sweetly 
smiling."  No  notice  whatever  is  taken  of  her  actual 
beauty,  which  an  admiring  lover  would  hardly  have 
passed  over  in  silence,  had  it  offered  matter  for 
warmer  eulogy. 

In  entering  upon  the  most  delicate  and  difficult 
element  of  the  present  inquiry,  that  which  involves 
the  moral  and  social  character  of  Sappho,  it  must  be 
subject  of  regret  that  any  necessity  should  exist  for 
exchanging  the  equable  course  of  historical  narrative 
for  the  more  rugged  paths  of  literary  controversy; 
especially  in  a  case  where  the  sympathies  of  every 
well-constituted  mind,  would  rather  dispose  it  to  side 
with  those  authorities  from  whom  it  will  here  be  neces- 
sary to  differ.  The  question  is  however  one  of  too 
great  importance  and  interest,  as  bearing  on  the  cha- 
racter not  merely  of  an  individual  poetess,  but  of  the 
whole  Greek  nation,  its  manners  and  literature,  durino- 
This  period,  to  be  passed  over  without  an  attempt  to 
correct  the  fallacious  point  of  view  in  which  it  has  re- 
cently been  placed  by  writers  of  deserved  authority.- 

>  Conf.  Max.  Tyr.  loc.  cit. 

*  Welcker,  Sappho  -von  einem  herrsch.  Yorurth.  befrejct,  Gott.  1816. 


Ch.  V.  §  10.  SAPPHO.       600  B.C.  291 

Sappho,  in  the  portrait  of  her  character  jointly  ex- 
hibited in  her  own  works  and  in  the  notices  of  her 
more  candid  and  intelligent  countrymen,  appears  as  a 
M'^oman  of  a  generous  disposition,  aiFectionate  heart, 
and  independant  spirit,  unless  when  brought  under 
the  sway  of  those  tender  passions  which  lorded  over 
every  other  influence  in  her  bosom.  Of  a  naturally 
ardent  and  excitable  temperament,  she  seems,  from 
her  earliest  years,  to  have  been  habituated  to  the  en- 
joyments rather  than  to  the  duties,  much  less  the 
restraints,  of  Greek  female  life.  Her  chief  or  only 
occupations  were  the  exercise  and  display  of  her  bril- 
liant poetical  talents  and  elegant  accomplishments ; 
and  her  voluptuous  habits  are  testified  by  almost 
every  extant  fragment  of  her  poems.  Her  suscepti- 
bility to  the  passion  of  love  formed,  above  all,  the 
dominant  feature  of  her  life,  her  character,  and  her 
muse.  Her  indulgence  however  of  this,  as  of  every 
other  appetite,  sensual  or  intellectual,  while  setting 
at  nought  all  moral  restraints,  was  marked  by  her 
own  peculiar  refinement  of  taste,  exclusive  of  every 
approach  to  low  excess  or  profligacy. 

In  the  portrait  presented  to  us  by  the  popular  au- 
thorities of  the  present  day,  all  the  less  favourable 
features  of  the  above  sketch  are  efi*aced ;  while  the 
colouring  of  the  remainder  has  been  heightened  to  a 
dazzling  extreme  of  beauty  and  brilliancy,  exhibiting 
a  model  of  perfection,  physical  and  moral,  such  as  was 
never  probably  exemplified  in  woman,  and  least  of 


and  in  Kleine  Sclir.  vol.  ir.  p.  80.  sqq. ;  K.  O.  MUller,  Hist,  of  (ir.  Lit. 
ch.  xiii.  §  6.  p.  172.  sqq.  ;  Bode,  Gesch.  der  Hell.  Diclitk.  vol.  ii.  pt.  ii. 
p.  411.  .=qq. ;  Neue,  Sapphonis  Fragui. ;  Smith,  Diet,  of  Gr,  and  Rom. 
Biog.  vol.  HI,  p.  707. ;  Ulrici,  Gesch.  der  Hell.  Dichtk.  vol.  n.  p.  359, 
sqq.  ;  Richter,  Sappho  und  Erinnn. 

u  2 


292 


BIOGRAniY    OF    LYRIC    POETS. 


Book  III. 


Fallncy  of 
the  lately 
popular 
estimate  of 
her  cha- 
racter. 


all  in  the  prioress  of  an  association  of  votaries  of 
Venus  and  the  Muses,  in  one  of  the  most  voluptuous 
states  of  Greece. 

The  following  is  the  summary  of  her  various  ex- 
cellences, given  by  one  of  the  popular  organs  of  this 
amiable  but  fallacious  theory.  "  In  Sappho  a  warm 
and  profound  sensibility,  virgin  purity,  feminine 
softness,  and  delicacy  of  sentiment  and  feeling,  were 
combined  with  the  native  probity  and  simplicity  of 
the  ^olian  character ;  and  although  endued  with  a 
fine  perception  of  the  beautiful  and  brilliant,  she 
preferred  genuine  conscious  rectitude  to  every  other 
source  of  human  enjoyment."  ^ 

1 1.  The  best,  the  only  sound  criterion,  the  infallible 
criterion,  as  it  must  here  be  considered,  for  estimating 
the  moral  character  and  habits  of  Sappho,  and  to  which 
a  due  share  of  attention  will  be  devoted  in  the  sequel, 
has  been  transmitted  by  herself,  in  the  still  existing 
collection  of  her  poems.  That  collection,  though 
comparatively  scanty,  is  yet  abundantly  sufficient,  as 
illustrated  by  the  parallel  details  of  her  traditional 
history,  to  verify,  in  all  its  substantial  features,  what 
has  been  presented  in  the  previous  page  as  the  only 
genuine  portrait  of  her  character.  By  some  of  her 
more  chivalrous  modern  admirers  this  internal  head 
of  evidence  has  been  virtually  overlooked  ;  by  others 
it  has  been  so  greatly  misiinderstood  or  misapplied 
lor  behoof  of  their  own  amiable  paradox,  as  to  have 
proved  a  fertile  source  of  error  rather  than  of  truth. 
As  a  general  rule  however,  their  argument  has  been 
concentrated  preferably  around  certain  passages  of 
distinguished  antient  writers,  by  whom  the  character 

'  Ricbter,  op.  cit.  p.  22. ;  conf.  Bode,  op.  cit.  p.  422. ;  Smith,  op.  cit. 
p.  707. 


Ch.  V.  §11.  SAPPHO.       600  B.C.  293 

of  the  poetess  appeared  to  them  to  be  viewed  in  a  light 
favourable  to  their  OAvn  doctrine.  The  authority  of 
these  passages  there  will  be  no  necessity  here  to  dis- 
pute, inasmuch  as  they  are,  it  is  apprehended,  if 
fairly  quoted  and  rightly  understood,  among  those 
which  tend  most  effectually  to  set  aside  the  theory 
in  support  of  which  they  have  been' adduced. 

"  How,"  it  has  been  asked,  "  had  the  purity  of  Sap- 
pho's life  been  open  to  question,  could  Lucian  ^  have 
cited  her  in  companj'-  with  a  Theano  and  a  Diotima, 
in  illustration  of  female  excellence  ?  How  could  he, 
in  another  passage,  have  associated  her  with  the  same 
Theano  and  with  Telesilla,  as  worthy  to  sustain  the 
lustre  of  the  female  character  against  the  aspersions 
of  the  other  sex  ?  How,  had  she  been  such  as  the  po- 
pular error  represents  her,  could  even  Plato  ^  have  made 
such  honourable  mention  of  her?  "  ^  Here  however 
we  must  not  overlook,  as  some  of  the  more  unscrupu- 
lous champions  of  the  poetess  have  done,  another  fe- 
male, also  comprised  by  Lucian  among  his  specimens 
of  womanly  excellence,  Aspasia  namely,  the  paramour 
of  Pericles  ;  a  lady  distinguished,  like  Sappho,  both 
for  brilliant  talents  and  accomplishments,  and  for 
refined  delicacy  of  tastes,  but  like  Sappho,  also  a 
woman  of  undoubtedly  licentious  morals.  The  ad- 
mission of  this  name  into  Lucian's  catalogue,  were  in 
itself  sufficient  evidence  that  the  species  of  female 
excellence  to  which  he  refers  had  no  connexion  with 
immaculate  moral  purity.  What  he  had  in  view  was 
evidently  mere  general  brilliancy  of  female  character ; 

1  Imag.  xviii.,  Amor.  xxx. 
^  Phaedr.  p.  235.  sq. 

3  Welcker,  Kleine  Schr.  vol.  ii.  p,  102.  sq.  5   Neue,  Fragm.  Sappli. 
p.  8. 

M  3 


294  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC    POETS.  Book  IH. 

genius,  intellectual  capacity,  and  elegant  acquirements. 
In  the  former  of  the  two  passages  accordingly,  As- 
pasia  and  Diotima  are  quoted  as  representatives  of 
female  wit  or  conversational  talent  ^ ;  Sappho  as  the 
representative  of  "  luxurious  refinement  of  taste  and 
habits."  This  is  precisely  the  kind  of  social  excel- 
lence which,  on  the  authority  of  her  more  critical 
felloAV-countrymen,  has  in  these  pages  been  assigned 
her;  but  it  is  one  not  necessarily,  or  even  usually, 
connected  with  scrupulously  correct  morals.  In  the 
second  passage  Sappho  is  adduced  by  Lucian,  less  on 
account  of  her  own  virtues,  than  of  her  eloquence  in 
advocating  those  of  her  sex  ;  and  that  the  virtues  in 
question  were  not  of  a  very  rigid  character,  also  ap- 
pears from  the  mode  in  which  the  same  Aspasia  is 
again  introduced,  in  the  immediate  sequel,  as  their 
representative.  Plato,  in  like  manner,  cites  Sappho 
as  an  example  of  intellectual  capacity  combined  with 
poetical  genius,  but  in  no  sort  of  connexion  with 
moral  propriety,  as  is  abundantly  clear  from  the  com- 
panion with  whom  she  is  associated  as  the  male  type 
of  the  same  attributes.  This  is  no  other  than  Ana- 
creon.^  Even  the  most  envenomed  detractors  from 
the  fair  fame  of  the  poetess,  might  safely  allow  her  all 
the  honours  of  chastity  which  can  justly  belong  to 
her  in  partnership  with  such  a  colleague. 


*  Diotima,  Iiowever,  seems  also  to  have  been  an  erotic  poetess  of  the 
same  liberal  order  as  Sappho.     Max,  Tyr.  Diss.  vm.  p.  90.  94.  Dav. 

*  It  can  hardly  be  by  mere  accident  that  this  name,  with  that  of  Aspasia 
already  noticed,  has  been  so  generally  suppressed  by  the  modern  defenders 
of  Sappho  (Neue,  Bode,  Ulrlci,),  in  their  appeals  to  the  above  passages 
of  Lucian  and  Plato.  Welcker  alone,  with  that  ingenuous  candour 
which  always  distinguishes  his  style  of  criticism,  has  ventured  fairly  to 
grapple  with  all  the  difficulties  and  anomalies  of  the  fallacious  theory 
of  which  he  is  the  originator  and  ablest  advocate. 


Ch.  V.  §  11.  SAPPHO.       600  B.C.  295 

This  association  of  the  names  of  Sappho  and  Ana- 
creon,  as  the  male  and  female  types  of  the  voluptuous 
and  impassioned  orders  of  Greek  erotic  poetr}^,  is 
familiar  in  every  period  of  antiquity^,  and  supplies  an 
illustration  of  the  moral  character  of  the  poetess  which 
stands  in  need  of  no  commentary.  Here  however 
there  is  also  the  further  analog}'',  that  Anacreon's 
notorious  and  self-emblazoned  profligacy  in  the  pur- 
suit of  pleasure  was  counterbalanced,  we  are  assured, 
by  other  noble  and  generous  qualities ;  by  a  high- 
minded  independance  of  spirit,  and  a  rigid  integrity 
of  conduct  in  the  more  serious  affairs  of  life,  both 
public  and  private.- 

A  similar  analysis  of  other  classical  texts  in  Avhich 
Sappho  is  honourably  noticed  would  be  attended  with 
the  same  results.  The  brilliancy  of  her  character 
is  invariably  dwelt  on  in  terms  of  unqualified  eulogy ; 
but  as  to  its  moral  worth,  either  an  unfavourable 
verdict  is  given,  or  a  cautious  silence  preserved. 
Strabo  for  example  speaks  of  her  with  reverential 
awe,  as  "a  wonderful,"  an  almost  superhuman  being; 
but  in  the  sequel  of  the  same  text,  he  modifies  this 
praise  by  a  somewhat  pointed  restriction  of  it  to  her 
poetical  gifts.  To  this  romantic  veneration  for  the 
splendour  of  the  whole  portrait,  may  be  ascribed  the 
comparative  absence  of  more  definite  allusion  to  its 
less  estimable  features  by  the  graver  class  of  authors. 
The  opening  which  those  weaker  points  afforded  was 


^  Plut.  Symp.  vn.  vlil. ;  IMaxim.  Tyr.  Diss.  viii.  p.  90.  ed  Davis ;  Athen. 
xiv.  p.  639.,  conf.  697.;  Ovid,  Remed.  Am.  761.,  Art.  Am.  in.  331., 
Trist.  II.  364.  sq.  ;  Pausan.  i.  xxv.  1. ;  Aul.  Gell.  xix.  ix.  4. ;  Dio  Chrys. 
ed.  Reisk.  p.  81. ;  Themist.  Orat.  xiii.  p.  170.  ed.  Paris,  1684. ;  Gregorius 
ad  Hermog.  p.  914. ;  ap.  Reisk.  Orr.  Gr.  vol.  xiv. 

^  See  Appendix  E. 

u  4 


296  BIOGRAPHY    OF   LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

freely  laid  hold  of  by  the  satirist,  for  the  purpose  of 
burlesque  exaggeration  ;  but  the  respect  entertained 
for  her  higher  qualities  inclined  her  countrymen  of  a 
more  generous  temper,  if  not  to  justify,  at  least  to 
draw  the  veil  over  what  derogated  from  her  glory. 
Her  case  may  be  illustrated  by  others  parallel  in 
modern  times  ;  by  that  of  Heloise,  or  Mary.  How 
seldom,  in  the  popular  allusions  to  these  celebrated 
females,  are  they  mentioned  otherwise  than  as  ob- 
jects of  admiration  or  interest !  It  is  only  in  the 
page  of  the  critical  historian  or  the  scandalous  chro- 
nicler that  their  blemishes  are  prominently  brought 
forward.  There  can  also  be  little  doubt  that  various 
particulars  of  the  popular  history  of  Sappho,  Avhich 
her  modern  apologists  are  most  anxious  to  set  aside 
as  injurious  to  her  credit,  such  as  her  love  for 
Phaon  or  her  leap  from  the  Cliff,  were  far  from 
being  viewed  in  the  same  unfavourable  light  by  her 
antient  admirers.  They  were  considered  rather  as 
solid  earnest  of  that  ardent  enthusiasm  and  tender 
sensibility  which  animate  her  poems,  and  in  so  far, 
as  interesting  elements  of  the  whole  grand  pheno- 
menon of  her  character.  Strabo  for  example,  is  not 
deterred  by  his  expressed  belief  in  those  two  points 
of  her  traditional  history  from  mentioning  her  in 
the  warm  terms  of  admiration  above  quoted.  The 
context  of  the  passage  would,  indeed,  rather  imply 
that  belief  to  be  an  ingredient  of  the  profound  vener- 
ation with  which  she  inspired  him. 
How  far  12.  By  somc  of  Sappho's  modern  biographers,  this 

hy^twn-  romantic  estimate  of  her  character  seems  to  be 
founded  in  a  great  measure  on  the  assumption,  that 
by  such  of  her    fellow-countrymen    as    took    a   less 


tients  as  a 
courtesan. 


Ch.  V.  §  12.  SAPPHO.       600  B.C.  297 

favourable  view  of  her  conduct,  she  was  habitually 
represented  in  the  light  of  a  professional  courtesan  ^ ; 
and  the  very  reasonable  indignation  excited  by  this 
supposed  calumny,  has  greatly  helped  to  transport 
her  vindicators  into  an  opposite  extreme  of  generous 
enthusiasm.  Whether  there  be  valid  historical  grounds 
for  the  belief  that  the  efforts  even  of  the  popular 
antient  satirists  to  depreciate  the  fair  fame  of  the 
poetess  were  carried  to  this  extreme,  and  assuredly 
unjust  degree  of  severity,  is  a  question  to  which 
attention  will  be  paid  in  the  sequel.  Upon  this,  at 
the  best  unsound  basis  have,  however,  been  raised 
some  of  the  most  popular  arguments  in  favour  of 
her  immaculate  moral  purity.  "  How,"  it  has  been 
pointedly  urged,  with  reference  to  the  affair  of  Rho- 
dopis  above  detailed,  "  could  she  ever  have  re- 
proached her  brother  with  his  love  for  a  courtesan, 
had  she  been  herself  a  member  of  the  same  profession 
in  her  youth  ?  and  would  not  Charaxus  have  re- 
taliated upon  her  Avith  most  humiliating  effect?"^ 
Let  us  however  restore  the  case  to  its  real  bearings; 
let  us  assume  that  the  public  opinion  of  antiquity 
considered  Sappho,  not  as  a  professional  courtesan, 
but  as  a  lady  of  rank  who  united  brilliant  talents 
and  elegant  taste  with  licentious  freedom  of  habits  ; 
and  the  inference  will  also  require  to  be  very  dif- 
ferently shaped.  This  is  a  question  more  capable  of 
illustration  by  example  than  by  argument.  Were  the 
brother  of  a  modern  lady  of  noble  birth  and  high 
fashion  to  select  as  his  paramour  a  beautiful  prostitute 
of  the  lowest  order ;   were  he  to  provide  her  with  a 

1  MUller,  Hist,  of  Gr.  Lit.  p.  172.  sqq. 

*  Miiller,  loc.  cit. ;  conf.  Wulck.  op.  cit.  p.  114. 


298  BIOGRAPHY    OF   LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

handsome  establishment,  parade  her  in  public,  and 
waste  the  family  estate  in  ministering  to  her  follies 
and  vices,  his  sister  would  hardly  be  precluded  from 
her  right  to  lampoon  him  in  verse,  if  disposed  and 
qualified  to  vent  her  indignation  in  that  mode,  by 
the  consciousness  that  her  own  reputation  was  not 
immaculate.  That  such  motives  were  as  little  likely 
to  interfere  in  the  case  of  a  Lesbian  lady  of  similar 
character,  we  are  assured  on  authority  whose  com- 
petency is  beyond  all  dispute.  Among  classical 
critics  there  were  few  who  possessed  a  deeper  in- 
sight than  Ovid  into  the  spirit  and  habits  of  an- 
tient  society.  He  is  also  the  one  among  extant 
authorities  who,  while  far  from  degrading  Sappho  to 
the  rank  of  a  courtesan,  exhibits  her  moral  character 
in  the  least  favourable  light.  Yet  so  little  is  he 
alive  to  the  inconsistency  which  so  forcibly  strikes 
the  critic  of  the  present  day,  that  he  makes  no  diffi- 
culty of  introducing  her,  in  the  same  poem,  glorying 
in  her  own  indulgence  in  an  illicit  amour,  and  al- 
luding in  the  most  natural  manner  to  all  the  cir- 
cumstances of  her  quarrel  with  her  brother.^  But, 
it  may  further  be  asked,  with  reference  to  her  poeti- 
cal pasquinade  against  Charaxus,  would  it  ever  have 
occurred  to  a  woman  of  that  refined  delicacy  of 
moral  sentiment  of  which  Sappho  is  now  held  up  as 
a  pattern,  to  come  forward  herself  as  the  instrument 
of  giving  publicity  to  the  scandalous  and  degrading 
conduct  of  her  own  brother,  and  to  the  disgrace, 
consequently,  which  that  conduct  reflected  on  herself 
and  family  ? 

How  far  Sappho  may,  by  fanciful  or  satirical  au- 

'  Her.  XV.  63.  sq. 


Cii.  V.  §  13.  SAPPHO.       600  B.C.  299 

thors,  have  been  represented  as  a  courtesan,  is  a 
question  obviously  of  no  real  importance  in  any  more 
critical  estimate  of  her  true  character.  The  dis- 
passionate inquirer  will  readily  join  with  her  more 
unscrupulous  apologists  in  repudiating  a  view  as 
false  in  itself  as  derogatory  to  her  honour.  That 
such  a  colouring  should  have  been  given  in  occasional 
instances,  by  popular  satirists,  to  the  darker  traits  of 
her  portrait  seems  in  itself  natural  and  probable. 
The  fact  is  however,  that  there  is  no  actual  trace  of 
her  ever  having  been  subjected  in  any  quarter  to  so 
calumnious  an  imputation.^ 

13.  It    has   with   more   especial   confidence,    and  How  re- 
certamly  with  some  plausibility  been  asserted,  that  the  comic 
Sappho  was  habitually  produced  on  the  Attic  stage  Sns?' 
in  this  degrading  capacity  by  the  later  comic  poets, 
with  whom  she  was  a  favourite  heroine.     Yet,  even 
here,  the  proof  fails  altogether.     There  can  indeed 
be  little  doubt,  by  reference  as  well  to  the  general 
spirit  as  to  the  extant  remains  of  that  department  of 
the  drama,  that  she  was  there  exhibited  both  in  a  ludi- 


'  Miiller  asserts  that  Sappho  was  represented  as  a  courtesan  by 
"  many"  antient  writers  (Hist,  of  Gr.  Lit.  p.  172.)  ;  but  cites  no  authority 
in  support  of  this  assertion.  Welcker  (Kl.  Schr.  vol.  ii.  p.  123.)  quotes 
a  single  passage  of  Seneca,  which,  however,  seems  really  to  imply  the 
reverse  of  what  he  and  Miiller  would  infer  from  it.  Seneca  (Epist.  88.),  in 
alluding  to  the  four  thousand  treatises  of  the  grammarian  Didymus,  on 
a  variety  of  for  the  most  part  trivial  or  nugatory  subjects,  quotes  as 
specimens  of  the  more  absurd  part  of  the  collection,  one  on  the  question, 
"  Whether  Anacreon  was  more  distinguished  for  drunkenness  or  lewdness  ?" 
and  another  devoted  to  the  inquiry,  "  Whether  Sappho  was  in  tlie  habit 
of  prostituting  her  person?"  The  terms  of  this  citation  obviously  imply, 
that  the  treatise  on  Sappho,  like  that  on  Anacreon,  was  a  mere  speculative 
absurdity  of  the  individual  Didymus.  Seneca  would  hardly  have  alluded 
in  such  terms  to  a  serious  defence  of  the  most  illustrious  of  Greek  females 
against  a  widely  spread  false  and  scandalous  imputation. 


300  BIOGRAPHY    OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  III. 

crous  and  an  opprobrious  light. ^  But  neither  frag- 
ment of,  nor  citation  from,  any  one  of  the  half-score  of 
comedies  for  which  her  history  supplied  materials  (none 
of  which,  unfortunately,  have  survived)  has  yet  been 
adduced,  even  remotely  implying  that  she  was  repre- 
sented on  the  Attic  stage  as  a  professional  courtesan. 
Nor  was  it  the  custom  of  the  Attic  comedians  to  invest 
the  objects  of  their  satire  with  attributes  entirely  dif- 
ferent from  those  Avhich  belonged  to  them  in  real  life. 
The  art  of  tliose  masters,  as  of  all  skilful  satirists, 
consisted  in  exaggerating  or  caricaturing  real  failings. 
The  laws  of  Athenian  polite  society,  so  hostile  to 
female  independance,  and  in  general  to  all  freedom  of 
intercourse  between  the  sexes,  repudiated,  even  apart 
from  purely  moral  considerations,  the  unconstrained 
habits  of  the  poetess  and  her  sisterhood,  as  utterly 
incompatible  Avith  feminine  decency  or  propriety. 
The  object  therefore  of  the  comic  moralist,  in  the 
case  of  such  a  heroine  as  Sappho,  would  be  to  hold 
up,  in  a  burlesque  or  odious  light,  the  consequences 
of  any  wide  violation  of  the  rules  of  Athenian  do- 
mestic manners,  even  in  a  female  of  distinguished 
birth  and  brilliant  talents.  Her  transformation  into 
a  professional  woman  of  pleasure  would  have  marred 

'  Yet  it  is  certainly  somewhat  remarkable,  that  (setting  aside  alto- 
gether the  question  of  her  courtesanship),  in  neither  fragment  nor  citation 
of  the  ten  comedies  above  referred  to  (p.  274.  sq.)  as  having  treated  in 
more  or  less  detail  of  her  afi'airs,  does  tliere  occur  any  distinct  allusion 
to  the  sexual  irregularities  of  her  conduct  In  the  passage  quoted  by 
Athenaeus  (x.  p.  450.  sq.)  from  the  "  Sappho"  of  Antiphanes,  where  the 
heroine  is  introduced  propounding  and  interpreting  epigrammatic  riddles, 
the  satire  is  aimed  partly  at  her  own  intellectual  subtlety,  still  more 
perhaps  at  that  of  Plato,  and  other  enthusiastic  eulogists  of  her  "wisdom." 
In  the  "Sappho"  of  Diphilus  she  is  represented  as  participating,  how  far 
to  an  intemperate  excess  does  not  appear,  in  the  convivialities  of  her 
admirers,  Archilochus  and  Hipponax.     Athen.  xi.  p.  487.,  xiii.  p.  599. 


Ch.  V.  §13.  SAPPHO.       600  B.C.  '  301 

both  the  novelty  and  the  spirit  of  the  caricature.  A 
courtesan  was,  at  the  best,  a  common  character  at 
Athens,  and  a  hackneyed  one  on  her  stage ;  nor 
Avas  it  one  perhaps,  on  the  whole,  so  disreputable  in 
Athenian  estimation  as  that  of  Sappho  herself,  under 
the  exaggerated  colours  in  which  no  doubt  the  latter 
was  represented.  To  have  forced  these  miserably  com- 
monplace attributes  on  a  heroine  who,  in  her  own 
natural  character  presented  so  far  superior  a  stock 
of  materials  for  dramatic  treatment,  would  have  been 
a  breach  of  the  fundamental  rules,  both  ethic  and 
poetical,  of  the  Attic  drama.^ 

The  fact  however  of  Sappho  having  been  carica- 
tured on  the  Attic  stage,  and  the  groundless  assump- 
tion that  she  was  there  caricatured  in  the  guise  of 
a  courtesan,  have  supplied  the  modern  vindicators  of 
her  morality  with  some  of  their  favourite  weapons  of 
defence.  Not  only  her  supposed  courtesan  ship,  but 
almost  every  recorded  blemish  or  peculiarity  of  her 
character,  as  it  appears  in  the  older  more  authentic 
portrait  of  it,  has  been  laid  to  account  of  this  popular 
source  of  pollution,  often  with  singularly  incon- 
gruous effect.  Even  the  plainness  of  her  person, 
and  her  Leucadian  leap,  have  been  traced  to  the 
malice  of  those  comic  calumniators.  It  is  difficult 
to  believe  that  accomplished  Attic  dramatists  would, 

'  Among  the  more  burlesque  details  of  the  popular  history  of  the 
poetess,  there  is  none  which  may  with  greater  confidence  be  laid  to  the 
charge  of  the  Attic  comedy  than  that  which  gave  her  a  husband 
called  Cercolas  (Penifer),  a  citizen  of  the  town  of  Andros  (^''irilia).  It 
could  hardly,  however,  have  occurred  to  these  authorities  to  provide  a 
professional  courtesan  with  a  husband  of  any  kind,  much  less  with  one 
of  wliom  the  followers  of  her  vocation,  among  all  other  women,  stood 
least  in  need.  The  above  etymology  of  Cercolas  is  illustrated  and  con- 
firmed, together  with  the  dramatic  origin  of  the  name,  by  the  title  of 
another  similar  hero  of  the  Attic  stage,  Misgolas  (Concubius),  celebrated 
by  Timocles  and  Alexis  ap.  Athen.  viii.  p.  339. 


302  BIOGRAPHY    OF    LYRIC    TOETS.  Book  III. 

without  some  precedent  in  the  real  history  of  the 
individual,  have  been  guilty  of  so  gratuitous  and 
palpable  an  inconsistency  as  that  of  representing  the 
most  popular  "  courtesan "  of  her  age,  the  beloved 
of  Anacreon  and  Archilochus,  as  an  ugly  woman; 
denying  her  in  fact  the  ordinary,  the  universal, 
almost  the  only  indispensable  requisite  of  her  pro- 
fession. Nor  is  it  much  more  likely  that  they  would 
have  figured  a  prostitute,  in  the  midst  of  her  orgies, 
as  so  feelingly  susceptible  of  the  power  of  genuine 
romantic  love,  as  to  commit  suicide  on  account  of  a 
disappointment.  Even  admitting  the  Comio  Muse 
of  Athens  to  have  occasionally  overstepped  what  has 
above  been  assumed  to  be  her  own  more  immediate 
province,  by  inventing  rather  than  caricaturing  the 
faults  and  failings  of  her  popular  heroes,  we  must  do 
her  at  least  the  justice  to  believe  that  her  fictions 
would  have  been  in  better  keeping  than  those  here 
imputed  to  her,  with  the  laws  both  of  Grecian  art  and 
of  human  nature.  There  can  hardly  therefore  be  a 
shadow  of  reasonable  doubt,  that  if  Sappho  was  ever 
represented  on  the  Attic  stage  as  a  plain  woman  or 
as  a  self-murderess,  she  was  so  represented  on  the 
authority  of  her  old  traditional  biographers.  It  may 
also  be  remarked,  that  the  only  distinct  allusion  by  a 
comic  poet  to  Sappho's  Leucadian  leap,  Menander's 
well  known  beautiful  description  of  Cape  Leucas^, 

*  ov  St/  A.6'}€Ta(  irpdtri)  '2a.ir<p(i, 

rbv  vireoKO/xTTOP  Oripuxra  ^atov*, 
olffTpUvTi  TTodcj}  p7^ai  irerpas 
OTTO  Tr)\e(pavovs. 
Where  yonder  cliff  rears  high  its  crest  in  air, 
White  glittering  o'er  the  distant  wave, 
There  Sappho,  headlong,  in  a  briny  grave 
Entomb'd  wi)h  frantic  plnnge  her  love  and  her  despair. 


Ch.  V.  §  13.  SAPPHO.       600  B.C.  303 

bears  evidence,  in  its  plaintive  seriousness  both  of 
expression  and  numbers,  that  the  drama  of  "  Leu- 
cadia,"  in  which  it  occurred,  treated  this  part  of  the 
poetess's  history,  not  in  the  purely  burlesque  style  of 
the  old  or  middle  comedy,  but  in  the  amatory  style  ^ 
of  the  new  comedy,  a  style  which  the  same  Menander 
enjoys  the  credit  of  introducing,  or  carrying  to  its 
greatest  perfection. 

In  so  far  therefore  as  extant  authorities  admit  of 
our  judging,  the  actual  courtesanship  of  Sappho  was 
confined,  even  in  the  fiction  or  fancy  of  the  antient 
public,  to  the  other  proprietrix  of  the  name  alluded 
to  in  a  former  page.^  That  this  second  Sappho,  the 
"courtesan,"  was  an  altogether  imaginary  personage 
is  not  now  disputed  in  any  reasonable  quarter.  She 
evidently  owes  her  existence  to  the  anxiety  of  the 
later  Greek  sophists  to  relieve,  by  this  amiable  but 
not  very  critical  expedient  common  with  them  in 
similar  cases,  the  ideal  dignity  of  the  genuine  Sappho's 
character  from  the  alloy  of  vice  or  weakness  with 
which,  either  in  the  authentic  tradition  or  the  Attic 
drama,  it  was  obscured.  This  popular  subdivision 
however  of  the  poetess's  personality,  seems  to  have 
been  as  little  recognised  as  her  individual  courtesan- 
ship  by  the  more  critical  authors  of  later  times, 
Strabo  and  Ovid  for  example,  in  their  allusions  to 
her  affairs.  Ovid  in  particular,  who  expatiates  more 
at  length  and  more  severely  than  any  other  extant 
classic  on  the  history  of  Sappho,  and  who  may  be 
considered  as  the  most  authentic  organ  of  that  portion 
of  the  critical  public  which  took  the  most  unfavourable 

^  This  further  appears  from  the  extant  fragments  of  the  Latin  para- 
phrase of  the  "  Leucadia"  by  Turpilius,  which  are  of  the  same  plaintive 
tendency.     Meineke,  Fragm.  Comm.  Grsec.  vol.  iv.  p.  159. 

«  p.  282. 


30-4  BIOGRAPHY    OF    LYRIC    POETS.  Book  lit. 

view  of  her  character,  holds  it  up  in  substantially  the 

same  light  as  tliat  in  which  it  has  been  exhibited  in 

these  pages.     He  represents  her  as  an   enthusiastic 

and  independant  votary  of  love  and  pleasure  for  their 

own  sake  ;  and  who,  far  from  turning  the  homage  of 

the  other  sex  to  mercenary  account,  was  ready  to 

sacrifice  every  worldly  consideration,  even  life  itself, 

as  the  price  of  reciprocity  in  her  objects  of  affection. 

Apology  14.  The  foregoing  inquiry  into  the  mode  in  which 

racterdc-     Sappho's   history    may    have    been   handled    on    the 

twree-"^    Athenian    stage    involves,   in    some  degree,    another 

(lorn  of        question  of  still  greater  importance  to  a  just  estimate 

habits.         of  her  real  character  :  How  far,  namely,  that  boundless 

freedom  and  independance  of  social  habits  by  which 

Sappho  and  her  associates  are  acknowledged,  even  by 

their  warmest  apologists,  to  have  been  distinguished, 

can,  apart  from  more  strictly  moral  considerations, 

be  admitted  to  have  been  compatible,  in  any  part  of 

antient  Greece,  with  purity  or  respectability  of  Greek 

female  life. 

It  has  here  been  urged  on  the  apologetic  side,  "that 
it  was  merely  the  narrow  view  entertained  by  the  Athe- 
nians of  the  dignity  and  rights  of  the  female  sex,  and 
their  inability  to  appreciate  the  distinction  drawn  by 
their  more  liberal  Ji^olian  neighbours  between  rational 
independance  and  levity  in  female  conduct,  which  led, 
on  the  extension  of  the  literary  and  social  influence 
of  Athens  over  Hellas,  to  a  false  and  injurious  estimate 
of  the  ^Eolian  poetess's  character.  A  broad  line  of 
demarcation  must,"  it  is  maintained,  "  be  draAvn  in  this 
particular  between  the  genius  of  the  Athenian  and 
Ionian  and  that  of  the  ^olian  and  Dorian  races. 
Among  the  former,  the  condition  of  the  woman  was 
little  better,  worse  perhaps  in  some  respects,  than  that 
•of  domestic  servants.     AVhile  the  Oriental  principle 


Ch.  V.  §14.  SAPPHO.       GOO  B.C.  .305 

of  seclusion  was  enforced  to  an  almost  Oriental  extent, 
the  ordinary  education  of  tlie  females  was  barely  what 
suificed  to  qualify  them  for  the  management  of  their 
children,  slaves,  and  domestic  concerns.  For  the  rest, 
Pericles  himself  has  pronounced  that  the  best  woman 
was  she  of  whom  the  least  was  said  among  men  for 
good  or  for  evil.  In  the  ^Eolian  states,  on  the  other 
hand,"  we  are  told,  "  the  antient  simple  habits  of  the 
heroic  age  still  prevailed.  The  women  are  there  found 
taking  an  active  part  in  social,  and  even  in  public  life, 
enjoying  and  sharing  with  the  male  citizens  all  the 
rightful  privileges  of  education,  genius,  or  talent."  ^ 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  above  picture  of 
the  condition  of  the  Attic  females  is  substantially 
correct ;  but  the  wide  distinction  drawn  between 
them  and  their  ^Eolian  kinswoman  is  more  than  ques- 
tionable. That  the  women  of  Lesbos  were  not  sub- 
jected to  the  same  restrictions  as  those  of  Athens 
may,  perhaps,  be  granted  :  but  the  assumption,  that 
this  indulgence  was  a  mark  of  primitive  purity  of 
manners,  rather  than  of  the  licentious  habits  of  the 
JEolisxn  republics,  is  confuted  by  the  oldest  and  best 
writers  who  allude  to  the  social  condition  of  those 
states.  .  Heraclides  Ponticus  and  Theopompus  ^,  in 
common,  it  is  believed,  with  all  other  valid  autho- 
rities on  the  subject,  describe  the  ^Eolian,  and  espe- 
cially the  Lesbian  manners  as  refined  and  elegant 
it  is  true,  but  as  notoriously  voluptuous  and  pro- 
fligate. Nor  is  it  easy  to  recognise  any  trace  of 
simplicity  or  purity  in  the  glowing  outpourings 
of  uncontrolled   passion   and   refined   sensuality  by 

1  Mull.  Hist,  of  Gr.  Lit.  p.  173.  ;  Welck.  KI.  Schr.  vol.  n.  p.  95.  sq. ; 
Bode,  Gesch.  der  Gr.  Dichtk.  vol.  ii.  pt.  ii.  p.  420,  357. ;  Smith,  Diet,  of 
Gr.  and  Rom.  Biog.  vol.  in.  707. 

''  Ap.  Athen.  xiv.  p.  G24.,  x.  p.  442.  sq. ;  conf  Plelm,  Lesb.  p.  123. 

VOL.  III.  X 


306  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  III. 

which  those  manners  are  reflected  in   the  page   of 
either  Sappho  or  Alccens.     But  whatever  amount  of 
rational  liberty  may  have  been  allowed  to  the  fair  sex 
in  jNIitylene,  it  is  difficult  to  believe  that  the  code  of 
public  morality  in  that  or  any  other  Greek  republic, 
could  have  sanctioned  such  an  association  as  the  one 
over  which  Sappho  presided  ;   a  school  not  only  of 
poetry  and  music,  but  of  love  and  every  variety  of 
voluptuous  pursuit.     Analogy  has  been  sought   be- 
tween this  sisterhood  and  those  said  to  have  existed 
among  the  Spartan  matrons  ^;  but,  instead  of  a  pa- 
rallel tending  to  justify  the  Lesbian  association,  the 
contrast  might  with  better  reason  be  appealed  to  in 
an  opposite  sense.     The  object  in  the  two  cases  was 
widely    different.     With   the    Spartan   females   that 
object  was   to    cooperate  in  upholding  in    all   their 
rigour  the  ascetic  institutions  of  Lycurgus ;  with  the 
Lesbians,  it  was  to  cherish  and  promote  the  opposite 
extreme  of  elegant  licentiousness.     The  profligacy  of 
the  Lesbian  manners  has,  in  fact,  been  contrasted  by 
Heraclides  with   the   proverbial   purity  of  those  of 
Sparta,  in  the  passage  already  cited ;  and  the  con- 
trast is  curiously  illustrated  by  the  tradition  which 
connects  the  history  of  the  poetess  Erinna  with  that 
of  Sappho.     Erinna,  a  daughter  of  Dorian    parents 
settled   in   Mitylene,  and  a  maiden    combining,  like 
Sappho,  poetical  genius  with  an  ardent  temperament, 
is  described  as  having,  at  the  early  age  of  nineteen, 
pined  and  died  of  grief  consequent  on  the  interdict 
placed  by  her  mother  on  her  free  participation  in  the 
pursuits  of  the  Lesbian  queen  of  love  and  her  joyous 
companions. 

There  would  be  more  plausibility  in  this  line  of  vin- 

>  Miiller,  Hist,  of  Gr.  Lit.  p.  176. 


Cii.  V.  §  15.  SAPPHO.       GOO  B.C.  .307 

dication,  could  it  be  shown  that  the  Mitylenajan  sis- 
terhood consisted  but  of  Lesbian  or  iEolian  members. 
But  the  fact,  also  pointedly  pressed  by  Sappho's  apo- 
logists ^,  that  it  was  composed  in  great  part  of 
"  foreigners  attracted  by  the  charm  of  her  society 
from  all  parts  of  Greece,"  and  in  greatest  numbers, 
it  seems,  from  those  where  habits  the  most  opposite 
to  this  supposed  Lesbian  liberality  were  most  inve- 
terate, plainly  vitiates  the  whole  argument.  Among 
the  female  associates  of  Sappho  whose  names  are  re- 
corded, the  few  whose  birthplace  is  also  specified, 
Anactoria  of  Miletus,  Gongyla  of  Colophon,  and  Eu- 
nica  of  Salamis,  were  natives  of  Ionian  or  Attic  com- 
munities ;  of  the  very  districts  where  unrestrained 
freedom  of  female  habits  was  most  strongly  discounte- 
nanced. Young  unmarried  women,  for  as  such  they 
are  represented,  who,  in  violation  of  the  laws  of 
feminine  decency  in  which  they  had  been  educated, 
had  left  their  native  country  and  paternal  mansion, 
in  order  to  join  an  association  which  their  friends  at 
home,  as  also  so  strongly  urged  by  Sappho's  apolo- 
gists, looked  upon  as  a  sisterhood  of  courtesans,  could 
hardly  have  been  persons  of  very  scrupulous  modesty ; 
nor  can  a  more  favourable  judgement  be  formed  of 
the  matron  who  had  encouraged  such  conduct. 

15.  But  the  best  criteria  for  estimating  the  moral  Hercha- 
character  of  Sappho  are  those  transmitted  by  herself,  portrayed 
In  the  true  spirit  of  Greek  lyric  poetry,  the  whole,  or  j'^i^gr  wie 
by  far  the  greater  portion  of  her  works,  were  devoted  to  veuus. 
to   objects  around  which  her  own  personal  interests 
and  sympathies  were  concentrated.     That  the  most 

1  Welok.  Kl.  Schr.  vol.  ii.  p.  113,  114. ;  Bode,  Gcsch.  der  Hell.  Dicbtk. 
vol.  II.  pt.  ii.  p.  423.  sq.  ;  Miiller,  op.  cit.  p.  177. 

X  2 


308  BIOGRAPHY    OF   LYRIC    POETS.  Book  IIT. 

engrossing  of  these  objects  was  the  passion  of  love 
is  not  only  stated  by  those  who  had  access  to  her 
entire  collection,  but  is  abundantly  proved  by  her 
existing  remains.  He  must  indeed  be  a  singularly 
lenient  judge  of  human  character  and  conduct,  who 
can  figure  to  himself  the  leader  of  such  a  society 
spending  her  whole  life  in  studying,  inculcating,  and 
celebrating  the  joys  and  the  distresses,  the  longings 
and  the  disappointments  of  sexual  intercourse,  in  the 
most  fervid  and  impassioned,  often  licentious  strains, 
without  having  ever  been  herself  tempted  to  transgress 
the  limits  of  pure  Platonic  attachment.  Of  conjugal 
love,  though  far  from  excluded  from  her  subjects  of 
poetical  commentary,  a  large  portion  of  her  poems 
being  hymena^al  odes,  there  is  yet  no  vestige  in  any 
extant  passage  descriptive  of  the  phases  which  the 
passion  assumed  in  her  own  case.  In  closer  illustra- 
tion of  the  spirit  of  her  amorous  muse,  attention  may 
be  directed  to  the  first  ode  in  the  existing  collection, 
the  longest  poem  of  Sappho  which  has  been  preserved, 
still  the  most  brilliant  of  its  kind  in  any  language, 
and  imitated  or  paraphrased,  as  a  model  of  excellence, 
by  erotic  poets  of  every  succeeding  age.  It  will 
therefore  be  familiar  to  most  readers,  and  few  pro- 
bably who  have  perused  it  with  unprejudiced  minds, 
either  in  original  or  translation  \  have  discovered,  in 
its  glowing  energy  of  voluptuous  expression,  any 
symptoms  of  that  maiden  modesty  which  the  more 
ardent  admirers  of  its  author  pronounce  to  have  been 
one  of  her  most  prominent  characteristics.     The  ode 

*  The  best  English  versions  of  this  and  of  the  other  entire  ode  of 
Sappho  quoted  in  the  sequel,  are  still,  the  author  believes,  those  by 
Ambrose  Phillips  (Life  of  Sappho,  1713).  They  are  cited,  commented, 
and  praised  by  Addison,  in  the  Spectator  (Nos.  223.  229.),  and  certainly 
possess,  that  especially  of  the  shorter  ode,  considerable  merit. 


f 


Ch.  V.  §  15.  SAPPHO.       GOO  B.  C.  309 

is  conceived  iu  the  form  of  a  supplication  to  Venus 
to  soften  the  heart  of  an  obdurate  lover,  and  procure 
the  fair  complainer  relief  from  her  sufferings,  in  the 
full  gratification  of  the  passion  which  boils  in  her  fren- 
zied bosom.  Her  divine  patroness  is  invoked  "  by  the 
"  remembrance  of  the  favour  formerly  vouchsafed  in  a 
"  like  emergency,  when  the  goddess  had  appeared  to 
"  her  suppliant  in  a  chariot  drawn  by  sparrows,  and  had 
"  comforted  her  distress  by  tender  inquiries  who  it  was 
"  that  caused  her  sorrow,  and  by  an  assurance  of  the 
"  speedy  fulfilment  of  all  her  desires :  that  the  object 
"  of  her  unrequited  affection  would  ere  long  pursue 
"  her  as  ardently  as  he  now  coldly  avoided  her ;  that  he 
"  would  soon  snatch  those  kisses  which  he  now  scorned 
"  to  accept."  And  this,  we  are  told,  is  the  language  of 
an  innocent  virgin,  or  a  virtuous  matron.  It  is  fur- 
ther sufficiently  clear,  from  her  own  confession  in  the 
same  ode,  that  this  love  was  not  the  first  of  the  same 
kind,  the  pangs  and,  under  Aphrodite's  especial 
auspices,  the  full  indulgence  of  which  she  had  ex- 
perienced. Whether  the  idolised  object  was  in  each 
case  the  same  or  different  is  not  distinctly  stated  ;  but 
according  to  every  natural  principle  of  interpretation 
the  latter  view  is  the  more  probable.^ 

1  Any  very  close  commentary  on  this  ode  were  scarcely  consistent  with 
decency.  The  preference  of  sparrows  to  doves  or  Cupids,  for  the  office 
of  drawing  the  chariot  of  Venus,  can  be  explained,  as  it  has  been  by  the 
antient  commentators,  but  in  one  way.  These  birds  were  symbolic  of 
but  one  species  of  love,  that  called  oxevriKos  by  Athenseus  (ix.  p.  39 1.)^ 
who  quotes  Sa})pho  in  this  passage  among  his  authorities.  Conf.  TerpsicL 
ap.  Athen.  loc  cit. ;  Diphil.  ap.  Athen.  xiii.  p.  571. ;  Aristot.  Hist.  An, 
v.  ii.  4. ;  Eustath.  ad  II.  ii.  311.  Nor  can  the  last  two  lines  of  invocatiou 
addressed  to  Venus, 

oVtrct  8e  fioi  TeAeVcTttt 
Ovfws  ifj-fp^ft,  TeXeaov'  ah  5'  avra 
avi.i./j.axos  effffo, 

refer  to  any  other  than  a  purely  sensual  object.     No  ai)ol(igist  (il' Sappho 

X  3 


310  BIOGRAniY    OF    LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

inherother  16.  The  remains  of  Sappho's  Epithalamia,  or  nup- 
pocms  ^^r^\  Qjes,  while  the  portions  of  the  collection  in 
which  any  broad  traits  of  levity  were  perhaps  least  to 
be  expected,  are  those  which  offer  some  of  the  most 
striking  exemplifications  of  her  peculiar  faculty  of 
dressing  up  meretricious  ideas  in  such  elegant  forms, 
or  such  ingenious  disguise,  as  can  leave  no  room 
for  censure  on  purely  poetical  grounds,  however  irre- 
concilable with  the  laws  of  moral  propriety  or  with 
female  purity  of  sentiment.  One  of  her  antient 
commentators  \  in  alluding  to  her  compositions  of  this 
class,  remarks  that  "  The  office  of  celebrating  the 
rites  of  Yenus  with  lyre  and  song  appears,  by  the 
common  consent  of  her  fellow-poets,  to  have  been 
made  over  to  Sappho.  She  penetrates  into  the  arcana 
of  the  bridal  thalamus.  She  prepares  the  nuptial 
bed  and  marshals  the  attendant  virgins.  She  then 
joins  Yenus  in  conducting  the  bridegroom,  escorted 
by  the  Loves  and  Graces,  into  the  presence  of  the 
bride ;  and  likens  him  in  the  valour  of  his  deeds  to 
Achilles."  The  existing  scattered  remnants  of  her 
text  not  only  supply  an  apt  commentary  on  this 
passage,  but  indicate,  in  the  sequel,  a  still  more 
detailed  "  Homeric  "  description  of  the  exploits  of  the 
hero  and  heroine.  In  one  fragment  ^  Mars  is  sub- 
has  yet  ventured  fairly  to  grapple  with  the  terms  of  this  brilliant  text. 
By  K  O.  MuUer  in  particular,  the  defence  has  been  carefully  restricted 
to  the  style  of  the  composition.  «  The  indelicacy  of  such  an  avowal  of 
passionate  love,"  he  remarks,  "  is  much  diminished  by  the  manner  in 
which  it  is  made  ;"  on  the  tact  and  grace  of  which  he  profusely  enlarges. 
CHist  of  Gr.  Lit.  p.  175.)  The  obvious  objection  to  this  Ime  of  apology 
i^  its  "superfluity.  The  elegance  of  Sappho's  mode  of  expressing  even 
the  most  meretricious  ideas  has  never  been  questioned.  Mliller  evades 
alto-ether  the  question,  how  such  expressions  are  to  be  reconcded  with 
the  virgin  purity  or  matronly  modesty  for  which  he^giyes  her  credit. 
1  H^ierius,  Orat.  i.  iv.  '  ^  •"S-  ^'^^"^- 


Ch.  V.  §  16.  SAPPHO.       600  B.C.  311 

stituted  for  Acliilles,  as  the  mythical  type  of  the  male 
warrior's  prowess : 

yaix^pog  i(rsf>^£Tat  Wog  "Apr}]'. 

At  the  outset  of  the  engagement,  the  heroine  utters 
the  bold  exclamation :  ^ 

as)  TTUpQivog  £(r(ro[JLOH  ! 

This  valorous  announcement  seems  to  have  been  re- 
iterated, though  in  a  somewhat  less  confident  tone, 
in  the  sequel :  - 

7}  p   en  7rcx.pQ;viag  eV/3a7y.XojU.a/. 

Her  firmness  of  purpose  was  however,  in  the  end, 
obliged  to  give  way,  as  appears  from  the  ensuing 
dialogue  between  herself  and  one  of  her  principal 
fellow-combatants :  ^ 

Tra.pQsvia,  TrapSsvia,  ttoT  fxs  'Knroicr'  dyrol^ri  I 

To  which  Parthenia  replies,  that  she  is  "  gone  !  fled  ! 
never  ao:ain  to  return :  " 


The  following  verses  belonged  doubtless  to  the  con- 
gratulatory piean,  celebrating  the  ultimate  triumph  of 
the  hero :  ^ 

hauoig  dTToKoLg  iraipag 
The  subsequent  reconciliation  between  him  and  his 

'  Frg.  xLvii.  Schneldew. 

'^  Frg.  Lir.  ScLneidew. ;  conf.  lxxi.  Neue. 

3  Frg.  XXI.  Gaisf.  (Neue,  li.)  ;  couf.  Demctr.  de  Eloc.  cxl. 

■*  Frg.  LXX.XV1. 

X  4 


312  BIOGRArilY    OF    LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

fair  adversary  may  be  inferred  from  the  description 
of  her,  as  ^ 

(TToctyoig. 

And  the  permanence  of  this  friendly  feeling  on  her 
part  is  evinced  by  her  expression  of  mortification,  on 
an  ensuing  similar  occasion,  at  the  unexpectedly  pro- 
longed absence  of  her  former  enemy  :  - 

iyo)  OS  fxovu  xaQsu^o). 

These  illustrations  will  enable  us  the  better  to 
appreciate  the  validity  of  the  aj)peals  which  have  been 
made  ^,  on  the  apologetic  side  of  the  question,  to  the 
two  extant  passages  allusive  to  the  tender  intercourse 
of  Sappho  with  Alcaeus :  one  from  her  own  pen,  the 
other  from  that  of  her  admirer.*  In  the  first,  to  the 
poet's  announcement  that  "  he  had  a  proposal  to 
make,  but  that  modesty  tied  his  tongue,"  she  replies, 
that  "  were  his  desires  limited  to  what  w^as  just,  he 
"  would  not  be  ashamed  to  express  them."  Little 
Aveight  can  attach  to  such  isolated  expressions  in  the 
mouths  of  poets,  still  less  in  a  case  where  the  ambi- 
guous tenor  of  the  dialogue,  and  the  fragmentary  form 
in  which  it  has  been  transmitted,  preclude  all  insight 
into  the  circumstances  which  gave  rise  to  it.  Taking 
however  its  terms  in  the  most  favourable  sense,  as 

'  Frg.  xci.         Frg.  lii., 

ri  fie  TlavSiovh  uipauia  xe^'SwJ', 
may  possibly  be  her  reproachful  address  at  daybreak  to  the  disturbing 
twitter  of  the  swallow. 

-  Frg.  LV. 

»  Welck.  Kleiue  Schr.  vol.  ii.  p.  103.  bi[.;  Miiller,  Hist,  of  Gr.  Lit. 
p.  172.  *  Frg.  LXi. 


Ch.  V.  §  16.  SAPPHO.       600  B.C.  313 

indicating  that  Sappho  repelled  the  advances  of  Al- 
Cieus  towards  an  illicit  connexion,  all  that  can  rea- 
sonably be  inferred  is  that  he  was  not  a  favoured 
lover.  Her  reply  is  nothing  more  than  the  received 
commonplace  of  coy  woman,  declining  a  proposal 
which  happened  not  to  be  to  her  taste,  where  the 
language  of  modesty  is  as  habitually  assumed  by  the 
loosest  characters  for  the  purposes  of  coquetry,  as  it 
is  used  in  its  literal  sense  by  the  most  virtuous. 
The  same  or  a  very  similar  expression,  used  pro- 
bably on  a  similar  occasion,  occurred  in  a  passage 
of  Anacreon  ^ ;  nor,  if  this  charitable  construction 
of  the  phrase  be  insisted  on  in  the  one  case,  can  it,  in 
the  spirit  of  fairness,  be  denied  in  the  other.  The 
notoriously  profligate  and  licentious  Teian  poet  would 
then  be  entitled  to  rank,  according  to  this  novel 
standard  of  poetical  morality,  as  the  type  of  male 
bashfulness  and  discretion,  by  at  least  as  good  a 
right  as  that  by  which  Sappho,  on  the  strength 
of  her  dialogue  with  Alca^us,  has  been  set  apart 
as  the  type  of  female  purity  and  modesty.  No  less 
fallacious  is  the  inference  proposed  to  be  derived 
from  the  expression  "  pure,"  applied  by  Alcaeus  to 
Sappho  in  another  passage.^  Here  again,  nothing 
is  known  of  the  circumstances  under  which  the  epi- 
thet was  used.  As  Alcasus  was  probably  her  senior, 
it  may  have  been  addressed  to  her  at  an  early  period 
of  her  life  in  which  it  was  quite  appropriate.  It 
would  be  however,  in  any  case,  unreasonable  to  ex- 
pect that  an  enthusiastic  lover  would  be  deterred  from 
paying   such  a  compliment  to  an  amiable  mistress, 

'    KaAhv  thai  ry    t'pwTi   rd    SiKaia.      A\).   Max.    Tyi".    DibSCl't.    VllX.    J).    96. 

Dav. 

-  Alca'i  Fiagm.  xlii.  Matthitc. 


314  BIOGRAPUY    OF    LYRIC    POETS.  Book  m. 

merely  by  the  consideration   that  it  might  not   be 
merited  in  a  rigidly  moral  point  of  view. 

That  the  general  tendency  of  Sappho's  poetry  was 
not  more  favourable  to  her  private  character  than 
that  of  the  portions  preserved,  is  equally  certain 
from  the  testimony  of  those  who  had  access  to  her 
entire  collection.  The  judgement  of  Ovid,  while  the 
most  specific  that  has  been  transmitted,  is  here  as 
distinct  as  it  is  conclusive.  While  there  are  few  poets 
of  antiquity  who  combined  in  a  higher  degree  than 
Ovid,  brilliant  and  varied  genius  mth  critical  taste 
and  discernment,  and  with  extensive  knowledge  of  the 
antient  Avorld,  its  history  and  manners,  his  authority 
is  here  of  the  greater  weight,  that  neither  his  own 
moral  habits  nor  those  of  his  miise,  were  such  as  to 
render  him  a  fastidious  judge  in  the  case  of  a  fair 
fellow-minstrel.^      When,    therefore,    we    find   Ovid 


1  "Welcker  admits  that  Ovid  has  preserved  the  most  numerous  notices  of 
the  real  facts  of  Sappho's  history.  (Kleine  Schr.  vol.  n.  p.  81.)  He  admits 
that  the  same  Ovid  must  probably  have  known  her  compositions  by  heart. 
He  even  goes  the  length  (to  which  we  are  hardly  prepared  to  follow 
Lim)  of  maintaining,  on  Ovid's  authority,  against  O.  Miiller,  the  reality 
of  the  name  and  person  of  Phaon  as  the  genuine  lover  of  Sappho.  (Op. 
cit.  p.  124.  136.)  Yet  after  this  large  recognition  of  the  value  of  Ovid's 
testimony,  that  testimony  is  summarily  discarded  as  a  mere  echo  of  the 
calumnies  of  the  Attic  comedians,  in  regard  to  every  point  where  it 
seriously  militates  against  the  modern  theory.  The  principal  reason 
assigned  for  this  uncourteous  rejection  of  any  evidence  to  Sappho's  moral 
character,  on  the  part  of  a  witness  so  valuable  in  all  other  particulars,  is 
that  Ovid,  as  a  Roman,  was  incapable  (op.  cit.  p.  120.)  of  "raising  him- 
self above  the  realities  of  life  to  the  level  of  Greek  ideal  sensibility." 
This  imputed  disqualification  is  precisely  what,  according  to  the  view  here 
taken  of  the  case,  imparts  the  chief  weight  to  his  authority.  It  certainly 
enabled  him  to  judge  more  dispassionately,  and  we  apprehend  more  truly, 
of  the  moral  attributes  of  the  poetess,  than  any  such  second-rate  Pla- 
tonist  as  Maximus  Tyrius,  to  whose  affected  sentimentalities  (Diss,  viii.) 
so  much  importance  has  been  attached.  Even  the  great  masters  of  the 
Academy  were  evidently  so  swayed  by  their  own  erotic  theories,  and  so 


Ch.  V.  §  17.  SArPHO.      COO  B.  c.  315 

characterising  the  amatory  poetry  of  Sappho  as  "  un- 
surpassed in  lasciviousness,"  ^  it  seems  incredible 
that  effusions  open  to  such  a  censure  in  such  a 
quarter  could  have  been  indited  by  a  really  modest 
or  virtuous  woman.  His  verdict  is  well  supported  by 
such  other  antient  critics  as  have  ventured,  with 
equal  candour,  to  draw  a  distinction  between  the 
moral  tendency  and  the  poetical  power  and  brilliancy 
of  her  compositions.^ 

17.  Another   delicate    question   involved    in    this  Her  re- 
inquiry,  is  that  concerning  the  precise  nature  of  the  heJ.°?em?ie 
intercourse  between  Sappho  and  her  female  associates,  associates. 
It  will  neither  be  necessary  nor  agreeable  here  to  dwell 
at  any  length  on  the   cliapter  of  Greek  scandalous 
history    with   which    this   question    connects   itself, 
further  than  by  remarking  that  the  taste  for  impure 
intercourse,  which  forms  so  foul  a  blot  on  the  Greek 
national  character,  was  not  confined  to  the  male  sex ; 
and  that,  among  the  females  who  had  the  chief  credit 
of  being  infected  with  that  taste,  the  Lesbians  were 
so  remarkable,  as  to  have  procured  for  it,  under  its 
several  varieties,  the  distinctive  title  of  the  Lesbian 


bedazzled  by  the  brilliant  illustrations  of  those  theories  with  which  the 
muse  of  Sappho  supplied  them,  as  to  destroy  the  whole  value  of  their 
commentaries,  in  so  far  as  bearing  on  the  moral  element  of  her  cha- 
racter. Their  habitual  association  of  her  with  Anacreon,  and  other 
notoriously  licentious  authors  of  the  erotic  order  (see  p.  294,  sq.,  note), 
in  their  commentaries,  is  in  itself  conclusive  proof  that  their  judgements 
were  regulated  by  far  other  considerations  than  those  of  female  virtue  or 
modesty. 

1  Art.  Amat.  in.  331. 

-  Apul.  Apol.  p.  11.  ed.  Casaub.  1593;  IMartial,  Epigr.  vii.  68.,  x  35,; 
conf.  Athen.  xiir.  605.;  Epicrates  ap.  eund.  Compare  more  especially 
the  specimen  given  by  Athenreus  (xv.  p.  697.)  of  the  "Locrian"  style  of 
amorous  composition,  to  which  style  he  alludes  (xiv.  p,  639.)  as  identical 
with  that  of  Sappho. 


316  BIOGRAPHY    OF   LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

vice.  This  certainly  affords  strong  presumption 
that  in  a  Lesbian  female  association,  the  main  object 
of  which  Avas  the  pursuit  of  love  and  pleasure,  even 
this  eccentric  variety  of  the  passion  was  not  likely  to 
be  excluded.  Here  again,  as  in  regard  to  Sappho's 
dealings  with  the  other  sex,  veneration  for  the  ge- 
neral brilliancy  of  her  muse,  with  the  indulgence 
shown  by  the  Attic,  especially  the  Platonic  school  of 
philosophy  towards  every  kind  of  amatory  influence, 
seems  to  have  checked  any  more  severe  scrutiny  of 
this  part  of  her  character;  and  among  the  few  re-, 
maining  comments  on  the  subject,  the  authority  of 
her  apologists  is  perhaps  equal  to  that  of  her  de- 
tractors. Her  extant  remains  however,  which  still 
supply  the  modern  critic  with  his  own  means  of 
judging  between  the  two  parties,  leave  no  reasonable 
doubt  as  to  which  was  in  the  right.  In  several 
places,  Sappho  addresses  certain  of  her  female  as- 
sociates in  terms  of  no  less  voluptuous  passion  than 
those  employed  towards  her  male  objects  of  adoration. 
In  one  passage  \  equal  in  power  and  nearly  equal  in 
length  to  the  ode  to  Venus  already  cited,  her  ardour 
is  inflamed  by  the  sight  of  a  rival,  a  male  rival  it 
may  be  remarked,  participating,  however  slightly,  in 
the  privileges  to  which  she  herself  claimed  an  ex- 
clusive right.  She  describes  it  as  "a  bliss  equal  to 
"  that  of  the  gods  to  sit  by  the  side  of  her  beloved,  to 
"  hear  the  music  of  her  voice,  and  gaze  on  her  fasci- 
"  nating  smile.  At  the  sight  of  another  enjoying  this 
"  happiness  her  heart  sinks,  her  tongue  falters,  her 
"  lips  refuse  their  oflice ;  a  subtle  fire  runs  through 
"  her  veins,  dimness  overspreads  her  eyes,  a  hollow 
"  sound  fills  her  ears  ;  cold  perspiration,  tremor,  and 

*  Frag.  II. ;  conf.  note  to  p.  308. 


Ch.  V.  §17.  SAPPHO.       COO  B.C.  317 

"  ashy  paleness  pervade  her  frame,  and  she  feels  as 
"  if  the  last  ebb  of  life  was  approaching."  Elsewhere 
she  describes  her  sensation  towards  her  beloved  un- 
der the  figure  of  "  Cupid,  that  bitter-sweet  resistless 
"  enemy,  creeping  over  her  frame,  and  relaxing  every 
"  limb ; "  and,  on  the  same,  and  other  occasions,  gives 
equally  keen  expression  to  her  feelings  of  mortifi- 
cation and  jealousy,  towards  any  supposed  rival  in 
the  affections  of  a  favourite  mistress.^ 

The  former  of  these  extracts  has  been  cited  by 
Longinus,  as  the  passage  which,  in  the  whole  volume 
of  Greek  erotic  literature,  ofi*ered  the  most  powerful 
concentration  into  one  brilliant  focus,  of  the  various 
modes  in  which  the  overwhelming  influence  of  amo- 
rous concupiscence  can  display  itself  on  the  human 
frame.  The  modern  apologists  of  Sappho  discover  in 
it  merely  a  warm  expression  of  "  maternal  interest  " 
and  "  friendly  attachment ;  "  ^  and  the  passionate 
tone  which  it  assumes  does  but  reflect  "  the  extreme 
excitability  of  the  Greek  character,  and  the  ardour 
of  the  southern  temperament,  where  feelings  which 
among  nations  of  colder  blood  remain  altogether  dis- 
tinct are  blended  or  confounded." 

That  the  warm  temperament  of  the  Greeks  led  them 
to  feel  more  keenly,  and  express  their  emotions  more 
vehemently,  than  the  natives  of  northern  latitudes, 
may,  as  a  general  rule,  be  admitted.  To  suppose 
however  that  it  led  them,  in  embodying  those 
emotions  in  poetical  form,  to  confound  feelings  as 
completely  distinct  among  them  as  among  all  other 
nations  ;  that  it  ever  led  them,  when  their  hearts 
were  overflowing  with  maternal  fondness  or  sisterly 

^  Frg.  xxxvii. ;  conf.  lviii.  lxxx. 
3  MUll.  Hist,  of  Gr.  Lit.  p.  177,  178. 


318  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  HI. 

friendship,  to  address  the  object  of  those  affections  in 
the  language  of  ardent  sensual  passion,  were  as  great 
a  libel  on  the  genius  as  on  the  common  sense  of  a 
race,  so  deservedly  celebrated  for  discriminating  taste 
and  propriety  in  every  branch  of  literature  and  art. 
It  will  doubtless  have  already  occurred  to  the  critical 
reader,  that  in  the  exact  ratio  in  which  such  over- 
strained attempts  to  explain  away  or  palliate  the  ob- 
vious and  natural  import  of  these  ardent  effusions 
may  tend  to  vindicate  the  moral  character  of  the 
poetess,  they  must  tend  to  depreciate  her  poetical 
genius.  There  is  no  escape  from  one  or  other  alter- 
native. If  Sappho  did  not  mean  or  feel  what  she  has 
expressed  in  the  passages  above  quoted,  then  the 
most  brilliant  extant  specimens  of  her  muse  become 
comparatively  unmeaning  rhapsodies ;  if  she  did  so 
feel,  her  sentiments  were  not  those  of  maternal  ten- 
derness or  sisterly  friendship.-^ 
Critical  18.  Au  agTccable  change  of  subject  is  afforded  by 

her  wwks.  thc  transition  from  the  foregoing  impartial,  and  be- 
cause impartial,  in  many  respects  painful  scrutiny  of 
the  moral  character  of  Sappho,  to  the  critical  estimate 
of  her  poetical  genius.  Upon  this  head  no  difference 
of  opinion  can  be  discovered  among  either  antient  or 
modern  commentators,  none  at  least  disparaging  to 
her  fame.  Of  all  Greek  lyric  poets,  she  is  the  one 
perhaps  who,  in  her  own  peculiar  branch. of  inspira- 
tion, was  held  most  nearly  to  have  attained  perfection. 
The  unanimity  which  pervades  the  judgements  of  the 
leading  antient  critics  has  already  been  pointed  out. 

^  The  commentary  of  Longinus,  ra.  (rv/j.^aivoi'Ta  rats  ipcoTMah  fiaviais 
iraertfiara  .  .  .  in  rvjs  a.\ri0elu.s  avrrts,  k.t.A.,  would  also,  if  that  com- 
mentator had  understood  his  text  in  the  sense  proposed  by  Miiller,  be 
a  pure  nullity.     Conf.  Appendix  F. 


Cii.V.  §18.  SAPPHO.       GOO  B.C.  319 

Our  means  of  testing  their  verdict  by  internal  evi- 
dence, though  unfortunately  but  limited,  are  yet  amply 
sufficient  to  establish  its  justice.  There  can  also  be 
no  doubt  that,  in  the  two  longer  compositions  above 
appealed  to,  we  possess  two  of  her  most  brilliant  pro- 
ductions ;  for  as  such  they  are  quoted  and  eulogised 
by  the  standard  authors  in  whose  text  they  have 
been  preserved. 

That  the  more  dazzling  characteristics  of  Sappho's 
muse  were  of  a  licentious,  or  even  meretricious  ten- 
dency, can  in  itself  form  no  conclusive  argument  of 
her  having  been,  when  free  from  counteracting  in- 
fluences, less  feelingly  alive  in  the  abstract,  than 
many  rival  poets  of  less  exceptionable  morality,  to 
the  truly  great  and  excellent  in  human  character, 
even  to  the  virtues  by  which  she  herself  was  least 
distinguished.  Such  anomalies  are  familiar  in  every 
age,  and  above  all  perhaps,  as  evinced  by  the  case 
of  Archilochus,  in  the  rich  variety  of  ethic  studies 
presented  by  the  literarv  history  of  Greece.  The 
works  of  Sappho,  however,  supply  no  evidence  of  her 
fame  having  rested  on  any  more  solid  basis  than  her 
power  of  portraying  the  tender  passions,  coupled  with 
brilliancy  of  description,  purity  of  style,  and  harmony 
of  numbers.  Her  hymenceals,  where  a  wider  open- 
ing was  afforded  to  a  more  sober  vein  of  sentiment, 
are  much  in  the  same  glowing  enthusiastic  strain  as 
the  rest  of  her  odes.  The  existing  collection  com- 
prises, indeed,  occasional  passages  ostensibly  of  the 
didactic  or  gnomic  order,  embodying  maxims  for  the 
guidance  of  female  conduct,  addressed  to  her  youno- 
friends.  But  these  lessons  are  directed  chiefly  to 
the  formation  of  the  taste  of  her  pupils  in  music, 
poetry,  dress,  carriage,  and    other  elegant  arts  and 


320  BIOGRAPHY    OF   LYRIC    POETS.  Book  HI. 

accomplishments  which  fell  within  her  own  imme- 
diate province  of  academical  instruction.  The  few 
dogmas  of  a  graver  tendency,  however  beautifully 
expressed,  are  but  specimens  of  what  may  be  called 
the  popular  ethic  commonplace  of  the  lyric  lite- 
rature of  the  age.^  It  was,  therefore,  to  the  spirit  of 
love,  tenderness,  and  ideal  beauty,  which,  free  from 
the  alloy  of  any  darker  or  sterner  ingredients,  breathed 
through  all  her  productions,  rather  than  to  any  depth 
or  precision  of  the  moral  feeling  with  which  they  were 
seasoned,  that  she  was  indebted  for  the  hif!:h  encomia 
pronounced  on  her  intellectual  attributes  by  Solon  and 
Plato,  authorities  themselves  peculiarly  susceptible  of 
the  former  class  of  influences.  Her  pathos,  even 
where  most  overpowering,  appeals  but  to  the  more 
delicate  sympathies  of  our  nature,  to  those  concen- 
trated around  the  affections  of  love,  sorrow,  mortifica- 
tion, or  disappointment.  The  graver  or  darker  moods 
of  mind,  fortitude,  endurance,  resignation,  still  less 
anger,  revenge,  remorse,  seem  to  have  found  no  place 
in  her  system  of  poetical  ethics.  Hence  the  pre- 
vailing suavity  of  her  style  as  often  subsides  to  lan- 
guor as  rises  to  passion,  but  seldom  if  ever  sinks 
below  the  one  or  soars  above  the  other.  The  honour 
which  Lono'inus  awards  to  one  of  her  odes,  of  rankino^ 
among  the   examples   of  that  attribute    of  poetical 


^  Frg.  XLi.  xLv.  One  of  the  passages  of  this  kind  (frg.  x.)  partakes 
much  of  what  is  called  in  modern  criticism  a  "  conceit."  A  question 
appears  to  have  arisen  in  Sappho's  conversational  circle  as  to  the  merits 
or  demerits  of  death.  The  poetess,  in  answer  probably  to  some  senti- 
mental commonplace  of  an  opposite  tendency,  argued  that  '*  death  could 
not  be  a  blessing,  otherwise  the  gods  would  die.  Their  reservation  to 
themselves  of  the  privilege  of  immortality  proved  that  death  was  an 
evil."  Sappho  was  satirised  accordingly  on  the  Attic  stnge  for  such 
exercise  of  intellectual  subtlety.     Supra,  p.  300.  note. 


Ch.  V.  §18.  SAPPHO.       600  B.C.  321 

power  classed  by  him  under  the  general  head  of  The 
Sublime,  is  due  solely  to  the  wonderful  concentration 
within  those  few  stanzas  of  the  more  striking  phases 
or  influences  of  the  passion  of  love.  Nor  did  she 
herself  lay  claim  to  any  loftier  vein  of  inspiration,  if 
we  may  trust  the  terms  in  which  one  of  her  antient 
critics  has  made  Iter  contrast  her  own  muse  with  that 
of  her  countryman  Alcaeus.^ 

Her  imagery,  in  the  same  graceful  spirit  of  consis- 
tency, is  borrowed  alone  or  chiefly  from  the  softer 
more   attractive    objects    of  life,   real  or  ideal ;    the 
sweetest  flowers,  the  fairest  colours,  the  gentlest  ani- 
mals,  the  brightest  phases  of  the  heavenly  bodies. 
Even  the  destructive  elements  assume,  at  her  behest, 
mildness   in    the    exercise    of  their   powers.     "  The 
"  wind  rushing  down  the  mountain  gorge,  and  rend- 
"ing  the  boughs  of  the  majestic  oak,"  ^  as  a  type  of 
the  invincible  power  of  love  on  the  sternest  bosom  ; 
"  the  autumnal  rain  hissing  through  the  branches, 
"and  scattering  the  seared  leaves  of  the  ash,"  ^  as  a 
figure  of  some  cheerless  afl'ection  of  the  heart,  are  the 
harshest  and  dreariest  images  borrowed  by  her  from 
the  phenomena  of  the  material  world.     Her  mytho- 
logical  agents   are    similarly   selected :     the    "  bliss- 
*'  bestowing  Cypris  ;  the  bitter-sweet,  resistless,  limb- 
"  dissolving  Cupid  ^  ■  the  golden-throned  Aurora  ;  the 
"  rosy-armed    Graces  ^ ;    the   Muses   with   their   fair 
"  flowing  tresses  ^  ;   Leda  with  her  hyacinthine  egg  '' ; 
"  Mercury  with  his  ambrosial  chalice."  ^     Once  alone 
the  dark  Hades  is  invoked,  as  a  terror  to  the  female 
who  "  despises  the  flowers  of  Pieria."  ^     Such  figura- 
tive  embellishments   however   are  chiefly   displayed 

1  Ovid.  Her.  xv.  30.  ^  Frg.  lxxiv.  ^  Frg.  iv.         ■*  1' rg.  xxxvii. 

*  Frg.  xxn.       '^  Frg.  l.         "  Frg.  xxx.        "  Frg.  lxxix.        ^  Frg.  xix. 
VOL.  III.  y 


322  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  III. 

in  her  lighter  passages.  Her  more  vivid  outbreaks 
of  passion  are  distinguished  rather  by  that  truthful, 
unstudied,  and  unadorned  simplicity  of  expression, 
which  insures  their  effect  on  the  reader  by  the  testi- 
mony it  affords  to  their  sincerity  in  the  breast  of 
their  author.  In  the  ode,  for  example,  selected  by 
Longinus  as  illustrative  of  the  amatory  sublime, 
the  whole  of  that  electrifying  effect  which  he  so  well 
appreciates,  depends  on  the  naked  reality  with  which 
the  combined  emotions  are  described.  The  same  re- 
mark applies  to  her  complaining  ode  to  Yenus,  where, 
with  the  exception  of  the  agency  of  the  goddess 
herself,  the  whole  description,  however  brilliantly 
worded,  is  confined  to  the  actual  facts  and  feelings  to 
which  it  was  the  main  object  of  the  poetess  to  give 
expression. 

The  passage  above  referred  to,  in  which  Sappho 
taunts  a  noble  Lesbian  dame  with  insensibility  to 
the  charm  of  her  own  favourite  pursuits,  shows  that 
she  possessed  considerable  powers  of  sarcasm  when 
she  thought  fit  to  exercise  them : 

xa.T^av(ii(TOi  Ss  mla-f^,  o'jq'  'in  Tig  [xva.fjt.0(r6va  cs^sv 
scrcrsT   ouOeTfor   elg  vcttsoov  '  ou  yap  Trsosysig  oo^cov 
rSiV  sx  Ylispiotg'  aXX'  at^avYig,  >cr^v  'Atoa.  SojUO/^, 
(^oirarrsig,  ttzV  a[xa'jpu}V  vbkucov  sx7rB7roTa[j,iva.    .   .    . 

In  the  cold  grave  where  thou  shalt  lie, 
All  memory  too  of  thee  shall  die  ; 
Who,  in  this  life's  auspicious  hours, 
Disdain'st  Pieria's  genial  flowers. 
And,  in  the  mansions  of  the  dead, 
With  the  vile  crowd  of  ghosts  thy  shade, 
While  nobler  spirits  point  with  scorn, 
Shall  flit  neglected  and  forlorn.  .  .  . 

The  metres  of  Sappho  are,  in  their  general  character, 


Ch.  V.  §  18.  SAPPHO.       600  B.C.  323 

substantially  the  same  as  those  of  Alcceus ;  combi- 
nations of  dactylic,  trochaic,  and  choriambic  forms, 
occasionally  sustained  by  the  more  emphatic  iambus 
and  spondee.  The  chief  difference  between  their  modes 
of  employing  the  elements  common  to  each  is,  that 
while  Alca3us  avails  himself  with  greater  freedom  of 
those  of  a  more  masculine  cadence,  in  imparting 
vigour  to  the  native  softness  of  iEolian  harmony, 
Sappho  rather  seeks  to  turn  that  softness  to  its  full 
account,  in  enhancing  the  tenderness  and  pathos  of 
her  appeals.-^  The  melody  not  only  of  her  numbers, 
but  of  her  language,  and  her  peculiar  faculty  of 
adapting  the  sound  of  the  words  and  the  structure  of 
the  sentences  to  the  character  of  the  idea  to  be  ex- 
pressed, are  especially  noticed  by  antient  critics.^  By 
one  her  whole  poetry  is  described  as  so  perfectly 
musical  and  harmonious,  that  even  the  harshest  voice 
or  most  awkward  recital  could  hardly  render  it  un- 
pleasing  to  the  ear.^  Her  odes  were  arranged  by 
herself  to  the  softest  of  Greek  measures,  the  Mixo- 
lydian,  of  which  some  authors  describe  her  as  the 
inventress.^ 

^  Tliis  effect  may  be  illustrated,  in  the  conversion  of  the  iambus  of 
the  Alcaic  into  the  trochee  of  the  Sapphic  strophe,  by  the  transposition 
of  a  single  syllable  common  to  the  leading  verse  of  each  : 

TO  I  fx.ef  jap  ivSev  Kv/na  KilAri'5eTar| 
I  ■KoltiiKoBpov     aOa.va.T'    'Af/^puSilra. 

For  a  more  detailed  analysis  of  the  metres  of  Sappho,  see  Neue,  p.  12. 
sqq.  ;  and  Smith,  Diet,  of  Greek  and  llom.  Biogr.  art.  Sappho,  to  which 
the  author  is  indebted  for  the  foregoing  metrical  scheme. 

^  Dion.  Hal.  de  Comp.  Verb,  xxixi. ;  De  adm.  vi  die.  Demosth.  p.  1079. 
Reisk. 

^  Demetrius  de  Elocut.  cxxxii.,  conf  clxvi. 

*  Aristox.  ap.  Pint,  de  Mus.  xvi.  It  is  somewhat  remai-kable  that  no 
notice  is  extant  of  an  edition  of  Sappho  having  been  prepared  by  any 
one  of  the  great  Alexandrian  critics,  or  even  of  her  poems  having,  like 
the  works  of  Archilochus,  Alca3us,  and  other  leading  lyric  masters  of 

Y  2 


324  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  III. 

Branches  19.  The  entire  works  of  Sappho,  as  indicated  by 

sitimi  cui'u-  the  grammarians,  comprised  Love-songs  (Erotica), 
vated  by  Epithalauiia,  or  Bridal-songs,  Hymns,  Epigrams,  Ele- 
gies, and  Iambics.^  The  collection  was  distributed  by 
the  same  authorities  into  nine  books,  with  reference 
more,  it  would  seem,  to  the  varieties  of  the  measure 
than  of  the  subject  of  the  compositions.  Of  Iambics 
in  the  proper  sense  no  examples  remain;  and  the 
two  or  three  preserved  specimens  of  Elegiac  measure, 
in  so  far  as  entitled  to  a  place  in  the  collection,  being 
upon  the  whole  the  least  authenticated  part  of  its 
contents,  belong  to  the  previous  head  of  Epigrams. 
By  far  the  greater  portion  of  her  remains  are  of 
the  two  first-mentioned  classes,  the  Erotica  and  Epi- 
thalamia.  No  passages  of  so  purely  convivial  a 
character  have  been  transmitted,  as  to  warrant  the 
belief  that  the  works  of  Sappho  comprised  poems 
of  the  Bacchic  order.  The  existing  collection  how- 
ever, contains  many  incidental  illustrations  or  allu- 
sions of  a  Dionysiac  tendency.'-  These,  although  for 
the  most  part  not  only  free  from  any  tinge  of  gross- 
ness,  but  even  marked  by  all  her  usual  grace  and  de- 
licacy, may  yet  probably  have  afforded  a  handle  to 
the  composition  of  some  of  those  scenes  of  the  comic 
drama,  where  she  is  introduced  as  boon  companion 
of  Archilochus,  Hipponax,  and  Anacreon  in  their 
revels.  Sappho  is  also  mentioned  among  the  sup- 
posed authors  of  some  of  the  popular  Scolia.^ 

Her  hymns  were  chiefly  in  honour  of  Venus  and 

this  period,  supplied  tbose  critics  with  subject  of  special  commentary. 
The  only  authors  of  commentaries  on  Sappho  whose  names  have  been 
recorded  are  Chamaeleou,  Callias,  and  others,  who  belong  to  the  secondary 
order  of  classical  grammarians.     Conf.  Neue,  p.  11. 

^  Suid.  V.  2o7r(^Q)  ;  conf.  Neue,  p.  10.  sq. 

^  Frgg.  V.  VII.  XV.  XXXIII.  lxx.  lxxix.  '  Eustath.  ad  II.  ii.  711. 


Ch.  V.  §19.  SAPPHO.       600  B.C.  325 

Cupid.  Mention  is  also  made  of  one  to  Diana  ^ ; 
and  other  deities,  it  may  be  presumed,  were  occa- 
sionally celebrated.  All  these  addresses  appear  to 
have  been  in  an  amorous  rather  than  a  devotional 
strain,  dwelling  on  the  lighter  adventures  rather 
than  on  the  more  dignified  functions  of  the  divinities 
invoked.  Threnetic  odes  are  also  ascribed  to  Sappho, 
among  which  a  lament  of  Adonis  -  is  alluded  to : 
but  these  poems  are  not  classed  under  any  separate 
head  ;  and  in  an  extant  passage,  she  plainly  intimates 
that  this  gloomier  style  of  composition  was  little  to 
her  taste.^ 

The  Bridal-songs  formed  a  large  portion  of  her 
works,  under  considerable  variety  of  character. 
Sometimes  they  assumed  the  form  of  eclogues,  or 
short  dramatic  pieces^,  where  bands  of  youths  and 
virgins  pleaded,  in  heroic  measure,  for  and  against 
the  right  of  the  bridegroom  to  his  mistress.  A 
similar  altercation  took  place  between  the  chorus  of 
virgins  and  the  friend  of  the  bridegroom,  who  acted 
as  porter  at  the  door  of  the  thalamus,  and  whom  the 
band  of  fair  choristers  endeavoured  to  obstruct  in 
the  exercise  of  his  functions.  To  this  poetical  dia- 
lo£>"ue  succeeded  a  chorus  in  which  the  contending: 
parties  joined,  and  w^iich  was  arranged  in  short  lyric 
strophes,  with  appropriate  epode  or  burden.  Oc- 
casionally, as  we  have  seen,  the  dramatic  details  of 
the  piece  were  extended  to  the  inner  arcana  of  the 
thalamus,  in  a  spirit  of  minuteness  in  better  keeping 
with  the  genius  at  large  of  the  Sapphic  muse,  than 
with  the   dignity  and   sanctity  of  the  matrimonial 

1  Philostr.  vit.  Apoll.  i.  30. 

-  Antliol.  Pal.  VII.  407. ;  conf.  frg.  cxxviii.  *  Frg.  xxviii. 

*  Frg.  xxxviii. ;  Neiie  ad  loc. 

T  3 


326  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  III. 

rite.  That  such  was  the  plan  of  these  compositions 
appears  from  the  tenor  of  their  remains,  illustrated  by 
parallel  notices  of  anticnt  writers.^  Other  evidence  to 
the  same  effect  is  supplied  by  the  analogy  of  two  po- 
pular hymenagal  odes  of  Catullus'^,  comprising  many 
of  the  same  metrical  forms  preferred  by  the  poetess  in 
similar  cases,  and  much  of  the  imagery  and  language 
of  which  is  borrowed  from  still  extant  passages  of 
Sappho.  It  is  the  more  to  be  regretted  that  no 
entire  specimen  of  her  odes  of  this  class  should 
have  been  preserved,  from  their  having  offered  appa- 
rently, on  a  small  scale,  a  nearer  approach  to  pure 
dramatic  composition  than  had  yet  been  made  in  any 
other  department  of  poetry,  even  in  the  dithyramb, 
from  which  the  regular  drama  derived  its  origin. 
The  loss  is  also  cruelly  embittered  by  the  tantalising 
brilliancy  of  some  of  the  passages  which  have  reached 
us,  either  in  the  original,  or  as  paraphrased  by  the 
more  tasteful  antient  commentators.  In  one^  place, 
she  described  "  the  bridegroom  as  conducted  by  Ye- 
"  nus  in  the  chariot  of  the  Graces,  and  escorted  by 
*'  a  chorus  of  Nymphs  and  Cupids,  The  hair  of 
"  the  goddess  was  bound  with  hyacinthine  fillets,  ex- 
"  cept  in  front,  where  it  sported  freely  in  the  breeze. 
"  The  Cupids,  their  locks  entwined  with  gold,  and 
"  waving  torches  in  the  air,  ran  before  the  chariot. 
"  The  bride  was  likened  to  a  delicious  fruit,  the 
"  sweets  of  which  had  been  matured  on  the  topmost 
"  branch  of  the  tree,  coveted  by  all,  accessible  to 
"  none  but  to  the  single  happy  youth  destined,  in 
"  their  full  ripeness,  to  pluck  and  enjoy  them." 

^  Demetr.  de  Eloc.  clxvu.  -  Carm.  lxi.  lxii, 

^  Frg.  cxxxiii.  ;  Himeriii?,  Orat.  i.  iv.  sqq.,  conf.  frg.  xxxv. ;  CatuU. 
Lxn.  39. 


Ch.  V.  §20.       DAMOPIIYLA.       EKINNA.       600  B.C.  327 


DAMOPHYLA.     ERINNA.     600  B.  C. 

20.  The  only  other  poetesses  to  whom  tradition  Damophyia. 
assigns  a  place  in  this  period,  Damophyia  and 
Erinna,  were  both,  in  the  same  tradition,  pupils  of 
Sappho.  Their  history,  therefore,  appropriately  con- 
nects itself  with  that  of  their  illustrious  friend  and 
preceptress.  Damophyia  was  a  native  of  Pamphylia, 
a  district  of  Asia  Minor  colonised  by  ^^^olian  Greeks. 
The  precise  spot  of  her  nativity  is  not  recorded. 
Neither  she  nor  her  poems  appear  to  have  enjoyed 
any  great  degree  of  celebrity  ;  nor  is  her  name  in- 
cluded in  the  list  of  the  nine  standard  lyric  poetesses, 
or  mortal  muses,  of  the  Alexandrian  canon.  She 
composed,  like  her  mistress,  love-songs  and  hymns, 
none  of  which  have  been  preserved.  Among  her 
compositions  of  the  latter  class,  one  in  honour  of 
Artemis  is  described  as  a  close  imitation  of  similar 
odes  of  Sappho.^ 

Greater  interest  attaches  to  Erinna,  as  well  from  Erinna. 
the  excellence  of  her  genius,  as  from  the  singularity 
of  the  few  details  of  her  history  which  have  been  re- 
corded. The  pojDular  account  of  her  having  been  a 
contemporary  of  Sappho  rests  but  on  the  testimony 
of  two  Byzantine  compilers,  Suidas-  and  Eusta- 
thius^,  who  appear  however  to  have  had  access  to 
authentic  sources.  Eusebius'^  on  the  other  hand, 
on  less  sufficient  authority  ^,  brings  her  epoch  down 

'  Philostr,  vit,  Apoll.  i.  30.  2  y  "Hfuwa. 

3  Eustath.  ad  II.  ii.  711.  *  Ap.  Hieronjm.  ad  01.  106. 

*  That  possibly  of  Pliny,  II.  N.  xxxiv.  viii.,  who  Las  evidently  con- 
founded the  name  of  Myron,  the  sculptor  of  the  Lxxxviith  Olympiad, 
with  that  of  Myro,  a  female  friend  of  Erinna  herself.  Conf.  Welck.  Kl. 
Schr.  vol.  n.  p.  147. 

y  4 


328  EIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  III. 

as  low  as  the  cvith  Olympiad,  about  350  b.  c. 
Some  commentators  would  reconcile  these  conflicting 
data  by  the  common,  but  in  this  instance,  as  in 
almost  every  other,  unwarranted  expedient  of  as- 
suming two  Erinnas  ;  one  in  the  age  of  Sappho,  the 
other  in  that  of  Alexander  the  Great.  The  general 
tenor  of  the  allusions  both  to  herself  and  her  works, 
especially  in  the  popular  anthologies  where  she  is  a 
frequent  subject  of  celebration,  is  certainly  favour- 
able to  the  tradition  of  her  greater  antiquity,  and  of 
her  connexion  with  Sappho  and  her  school.  Nor  in- 
deed is  it  likely,  that  had  so  distinguished  a  female 
lived  in  the  age  of  Alexander  the  Great,  the  facts  of 
her  history  would  have  been  involved  in  so  much 
obscurity.  Upon  the  whole  therefore,  the  balance 
of  circumstantial  evidence  is  in  favour  of  the  more 
antient  date. 

Erinna  is  familiarly  called  by  the  antients  a  Les- 
bian or  Mitylenaean.  These  titles  however  seem  to 
refer  merely  to  her  habitual  residence  in  Lesbos ; 
for  in  other  more  specific  notices  her  nativity  is 
ascribed  to  Telos,  a  small  island  of  the  ^gaean  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Rhodes,  and  a  member,  it  would 
appear,  of  the  Rhodian  confederacy.^  The  preference 
of  Mitylene  as  her  place  of  abode  connects  itself  with 
the  legend  of  her  intimacy  with  Sappho,  to  join  whose 
attractive  circle  she  has  very  naturally  been  supposed, 
like  other  youthful  votaries  of  love  and  art,  to  have 
removed  from  her  paternal  mansion.  This  view  how- 
ever is  little  consistent  with  the  subsequent,  and  appa- 

1  Suid.  et  Eustath.  locc.  citt. ;  conf".  Stepb.  Byz.  v.  Trjyos ;  but  the 
name  of  this  latter  island,  like  that  of  Teos,  in  the  notice  of  Suidas, 
appears  to  originate  in  a  corruption  of,  or  confusion  with,  Telos.  Welck. 
op.  cit.  p.  146. 


Ch.  v.  §20.  ERINNA.       600  B.  C.  329 

rently  authentic  details  of  her  history.  She  is  there 
described  as  dying  at  the  early  age  of  nineteen,  a 
victim  to  the  combined  effects  of  an  excited  imagina- 
tion, and  of  the  restraints  imposed  on  its  indul- 
gence by  her  parents,  who  had  no  sympathy  with  her 
favourite  pursuits,  and  kept  her  closely  engaged  at 
the  loom  and  other  household  avocations.^  Her  re- 
moval to  Lesbos  could,  under  these  circumstances, 
only  have  been  consequent  on  a  general  change  of 
residence,  from  whatever  cause,  by  her  family. 

This  story  therefore  seems,  as  remarked  in  a  pre- 
vious page,  to  illustrate  the  view  above  taken  of  the 
real  character  of  Sappho's  circle  of  female  asso- 
ciates, of  their  habits,  and  of  the  estimation  in  which 
they  were  held  by  the  more  orderly  and  respect- 
able classes  of  Hellenic  society.  It  was  very  natural 
that  a  pair  of  honest  Dorian  settlers  in  Mitylene, 
should  guard  against  all  risk  of  their  daughter's  being 
drawn  into  the  vortex  of  refined  dissipation  on  the 
verge  of  which  they  had  placed  her.  It  was  equally 
natural  that  a  maiden  of  fervid  temperament,  con- 
scious of  her  capacity  to  shine  among  the  most 
brilliant  members  of  the  Sapphic  sisterhood,  and 
exposed  on  every  side  to  its  seductive  attractions, 
should  pine  and  languish  under  the  disappointment.^ 

The  most  celebrated  work  of  Erinna,  entitled  Ela- 

'  Suid.  et  Eustath.  locc.  citt. ;  conf,  Anthol.  Pal.  vii.  11.,  ix.  190. 

2  The  following  passage  of  Sappho  (frg.  xxxii.),  whether  originally  so 
intended  or  not,  has  much  the  appearance  of  a  remonstrance,  placed  in  the 
mouth  of  Erinna,  against  her  mother's  interference  with  her  freedom  of 
conduct : 

y\vKeia  fiarep  oUroi  Swafiai  KpeKr]i/  rhv  IcToVy 
ir6dof  Safj.f7<Ta  TrajSiy,  fipa^ii/dv  5i'  'ArppuSiTai'. 

O  mother  dear,  no  longer  the  f^pindle  I  can  turn, 

Such  fires  lor  my  beloved  youth  in  this  sad  l)f>5om  burn  ! 


330  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  III. 

cate,  or  "  the  Spindle,"  appears  to  have  been  a  me- 
trical complaint  of  the  hard  desthiy  which  chained 
her  to  the  loom,  and  cramped  the  exercise  of  the  more 
brilliant  talents  with  which  nature  had  endowed  her. 
The  poem  embodied  probably,  like  other  parallel 
compositions  of  the  period,  such  as  the  Nanno  of 
]\Iimnermus,  a  variety  of  plaintive  notices  of,  or  al- 
lusions to,  her  own  affairs  and  objects  of  interest.  It 
comprised  three  hundred  hexameter  lines,  in  a  dialect 
described  as  a  combination  of  iEolic  and  Doric  ele- 
ments.^ The  more  extended  celebrity  or  popularity 
of  this  poem  appears,  judging  from  extant  sources, 
to  have  been  limited  very  much  to  the  lower  ages 
of  classical  literature.  No  allusion  occurs  either  to 
Erinna  herself  or  to  her  "  Spindle  "  until  towards  the 
close  of  the  Alexandrian  period,  when  both  her  history 
and  her  works  became  favourite  subjects  of  comment 
with  the  popular  epigrammatists.  By  several  of  these 
commentators,  the  Spindle  is  described  in  terms  of 
boundless  eulogy,  as  placing  its  author,  in  the  art  of 
hexameter  composition,  on  a  level  with  Homer,  and  as 
far  above  Sappho  as  Sappho  was  superior  to  Erinna 
in  lyric  song'^ ;  but  in  other  more  fastidious  quarters, 
it  is  characterised  as  distinguished  rather  by  that 
negative  kind  of  merit  which  consists  in  the  absence 
of  faults,  than  by  any  very  striking  excellences.^ 
Of  the  two  hexameter  couplets  which  have  been 
transmitted  in  connexion  with  the  name  of  Erinna, 
one  ^  has,  with  apparent  reason,  been  considered  as  a 
frajrnient  of  her  Elacate.  These  verses  would  seem 
to  have  formed  the  close  of  a  dirge  or  lament  on  the 

^  Suid.  loc.  cit. ;  Eustatb.  loc.  cit. 
-  Eustath.  loc.  cit.  ;  conf.  Anthol.  Pal.  ix.  190. 
^'  Antiplian.  in  Antliol.  Pal.  xi.  322. 

*  Ap.  Scliueidew.  Delect.  Pees,  Gr.  iii.  p.  323.  fig.  i. ;  Slob.  Floiil. 
cxviii.  4. 


Ch.  V.  §20.  ERINNA.       600  B.  C  331 

death  of  a  friend,  or  possibly  on  her  own  anticipated 
fate,  and  are  in  an  elegant  but  somewhat  enigma- 
tical strain  of  plaintive  expression.  "  Soon  shall  this 
"  faint  echo,"  she  sings,  "  be  wafted  to  Hades,  and 
"  all  will  then  be  silent  in  the  grave ;  for  the  darkness 
"  of  death  steals  over  the  eyes :  " 

rouTo  [xsv  slg  'A/oai/  xsvsa  Ciavrj^srai  oi^co^ 
(Tiya  0   Iv  vsKuscrcri  •  to  os  (yxorog  ocrcs  xara^p'Si. 

Erinna  is  also  described  by  her  biographers  as 
having  composed  epigrams.-^  In  the  popular  antho- 
logies, accordingly,  various  specimens  of  this  kind  of 
composition  are  attributed  to  her.  Two  ^  are  se- 
pulchral elegies  in  honour  of  a  female  friend  named 
Baucis.  A  third ^  is  in  praise  of  a  work  of  sculpture. 
A  fourth^,  in  two  liexameter  lines,  expresses  anxiety 
for  the  return  of  another  friend  from  a  voyage. 
There  seems  no  serious  ground  for  questioning  the 
genuine  character  of  these  compositions  ;  and  several 
of  them  possess  considerable  merit,  especially  one  of 
the  epitaphs  on  Baucis.  All  are  perhaps  tinged  with 
the  sententious  mannerism  of  the  later  epigrammatic 
school,  a  quality  which  may  not  seem  favourable  to 
the  antiquity  claimed  for  their  author.  That  style 
however  must  have  had  a  beginning ;  and  symp- 
toms of  it  are  not  wanting  in  the  collections  of  Simo- 
nides,  and  of  other  popular  poets  of  an  age  equal  to, 
or  little  removed  from,  that  ascribed  to  Erinna. 

^  Suid.  V.  "Upii/va.  The  Ode  to  Eome,  which  vulgarly  passes  current 
as  a  work  of  Erinna,  has  been  ascribed  with  better  right  to  Melinno,  an 
otherwise  obscure  poetess  of  the  early  part  of  the  Roman  period.  AVelck. 
Kl.  Schr.  vol.  II.  p.  160. 

^  Anthol.  Pal.  vii.  710.  712.  The  genuine  character  of  the  latter  of 
these  two  epitaphs  seems  to  have  been  recognised  by  Leonidas  of  Taren- 
tum,  a  fellow-epigrammatist,  in  the  third  century  B.C.  Conf.  Anthol. 
Pal.  VII.  13. 

'  Anthol.  Pal.  vi.  352.  *  Ap.  Athon.  vii.  p,  283. 


332  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  III. 


CHAP.  VI. 

MIMNERMUS.      SOLON.     "  SEVEN  SAGES."     PITTACUS.      PERI- 
ANDER.      CLEOBULXJS.      CHILON.      BIAS. 

1.  mimnersrtrs.    his  age,  birthplace,  ch^^racter, 2.  his  works.    style 

of    elegiac    poetry. 3.  solon.      his    age,    birthplace,    family 

4.  early    life.     salajiixian  "war.     sacred    -w'ar.     legislative    code. 

5.  travels.    interview  with  crcescs.     narrative  of  herodotus. 

6.  return   to   athens.      death.      private   character. 7.   poetical 

cosipositions.     gnomic  school  of  poetry. 8.  critical  estimate  of 

Solon's  poetical  genius  and  works.  —  9.  poem  and  legend  of  Atlan- 
tis.   10.    ITS   ORIGIN   and   import. 11.   A  PURE  PLATONIC   ALLEGORY. 

12.    "SEVEN    SAGES."      PITTACUS.  13.    PERIANDER.  14.    JUST     ESTI3IATE 

OF    HIS   CHARACTER. —  15.   CLEOBUXUS.       CLEOBDLINE.  —  16.  CHILON.      BIAS. 


MIJMNERMUS.'     600  B.  C. 

Age,  birth-  1.  The  age  of  Mimiiermus  nearly  coincides  with  that 
racter.^  ^'  ^f  Sappho,  as  also  ^vith  that  of  his  own  illustrious 
friend  and  correspondent  Solon.  His  youth  ex- 
tended over  the  latter  part  of  the  seventh  century 
B.  c.  ;  his  manhood  over  the  first  half  of  the  sixth. ^ 
Of  the  date  of  his  birth  or  death  no  specific  notice 
has  been  preserved  ;  l)ut  he  seems  to  have  been  some- 
what senior  to  his  two  distinguished  contemporaries. 
In  the  best  accredited  notices  ^  he  is  described  as  a 
native    of   Colophon.     Other   less   valid   authorities 

^  Conf.  Bach,  Mimnermi  Carmina;  Gaisf.  Poett.  minn.  ed.  Lips.  vol.  in. 
p.  217. ;  Bergk,  Poett.  lyrr.  p.  314. ;  Schneidewin,  Delect.  Poes.  Gr.  pt.  i, 
p.  12.  The  remains  are  cited  according  to  the  arrangement  of  Bach, 
unless  where  another  collection  is  specified. 

2  Bach,  op.  cit.  p.  4. ;  conf.  Clint.  F.  H.  vol.  i.  p.  206.  366. 

^  Strabo,  XIV.  p.  643.  ;  Procl.  Chrestora.  Gaisf.  p.  379. ;  conf  Suid.  v. 
Mi/n»'fp,uos. 


Cu.VI.  §1.  MIMNERMUS.       600  B.  C.  333 

make  him  a  Smyrn^an.^  The  distinction  involved 
is  of  little  importance  as  affecting  his  real  origin. 
The  later  Ionian  Smyrna  was  a  distinguished  Colo- 
phonian  colony,  as  Mimnermus  himself  informs  us ; 
and  as  he,  in  several  extant  passages,  alludes  with 
pride  and  interest  to  the  destinies  of  that  city^,  it 
might  naturally  occur  to  speculative  critics,  amid 
any  uncertainty  on  the  subject,  to  assign  the  ho- 
nour of  his  birth  to  the  daughter  rather  than  to 
the  parent  state.  The  surname  Ligyastades  ^,  also 
written  Ligystiades,  Ligyrtiades,  by  which  he  is  occa- 
sionally designated,  might  seem  to  imply  that  his 
father's  name  was  Ligyastes,  or  Ligyrtes.  The  title 
may  however  with  better  reason  be  interpreted,  and 
has  been  interpreted  by  the  antients,  as  a  mere  figu- 
rative patronymic,  indicating  the  "  Plaintive  "  style 
of  his  poetry. 

The  only  clearly  ascertained  fact  in  the  life  of  Mim- 
nermus is  his  passion  for  a  female  flute-player  named 
Nanno  ^  ;  a  passion  supposed  by  some  commentators 
to  have  been  unrequited,  and  to  have  been  the  chief 
source  of  that  repining  morbid  spirit  which  pervades 
his  poetry.  But  of  disappointed  love  no  trace  appears, 
either  in  his  remains,  or  in  the  notices  of  those  who 
possessed  his  works  entire.  Among  the  various 
charges  of  cruelty  preferred  by  him  against  destiny, 
not  one  is  urged  on  any  such  ground ;  and  the  some- 
what vague  allusions  of  the  antients  to  his  connexion 

^  Suid.  loc.  cit. ;  who  also  vaguely  mentions  Astypala?a,  as  laying  claim 
to  his  nativity.  This  name  is  common  to  various  unimportant  commu- 
nities in  Attica,  Ionia,  and  the  isles  of  the  ^Egaean. 

"^  Strab.  XIV.  p.  634.  ;  Paus.  ix.  xxix. ;  frgg.  xi.  xii.  xiii, 

^  Suid.  loc.  cit. ;  Solon  ap.  Diog.  Laert.  in  vit.  Sol. ;  conf.  Bach,  p.  7. 

*  Hermesian.  ap.  Athen.  xiii.  p.  598. ;  Athen.  xiii.  p.  597. ;  Posidipp. 
in  Anthol.  Pal.  xii.  168. 


334  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

with  Nanno,  while  indicating  that  he  had  rivals,  would 
rather  imply  that  he  Avas  the  successful  lover,  and  as 
such  an  object  of  persecution  to  less  favoured  suitors.^ 
It  is  also  evident,  from  the  general  tone  of  his  verse  ^, 
that  his  attachment  to  Nanno  was  of  no  such  en- 
grossing nature  as  to  prevent  his  following  up  his 
amours  freely  in  other  quarters.  His  more  especial 
devotion  to  this  heroine  seems,  in  fact,  to  have  gone 
little  further  than  her  selection  by  preference  as  a 
poetical  centre,  or  bond  of  unity,  for  a  compilation  of 
his  miscellaneous  pieces ;  for  such  appears  to  have 
been  the  work  which,  whether  from  its  having  been 
addressed  or  merely  dedicated  to  her,  bore  the  title 
of  "  Xanno."  ^ 

The  compositions  of  Mimnermus  are  more  rich  in 
illustrations  of  the  prominent  features  of  his  temper 
and  character  than  of  the  events  of  his  life.  He 
appears  in  his  own  page  as  an  enthusiastic,  though 
far  from  joyous,  votary  of  pleasure.  The  ardour 
of  his  voluptuous  career  is  tempered  throughout 
by  a  spirit  of  peevish  discontent,  originating,  to  all 
appearance,  more  in  a  natural  melancholy  of  dispo- 
sition, and  in  a  keen  sense  of  the  ephemeral  nature 
of  his  favourite  enjoyments,  than  in  any  real  morti- 

^  Another  more  delicate  cause  of  the  supposed  coldness  of  Nanno,  has 
been  discovered  in  the  poet's  physical  disqualification  for  the  duties  of  a 
lover  by  the  mutilating  effects  of  a  wound.  But  this  vievs'  rests  solely 
on  an  obscure  allusion  of  Ovid  (Ibis,  550.),  where  even  the  name  of  the 
person  referred  to  is  of  doubtful  reading.  The  tenor  of  the  Colophonian 
poet's  own  text  is  certainly  far  from  favourable  to  this  supposition. 
Such  a  cause  must  have  precluded,  not  merely  the  success,  but  the 
urgent  pressure  of  his  suit.  The  complaints  also  which  he  so  frequently 
emits  against  the  influence  of  old  age,  and  of  other  natural  causes,  in 
destroying  the  taste  or  capacity  for  his  fovourite  enjoyments,  would,  upon 
this  view,  be  pointless  and  unmeaning. 

•  Frg.  I.  alibi. 


Ch.  VI.  §  1.  MIMNERMUS.       600  B.C.  335 

fication  to  which  he  was  subjected  in  the  pursuit 
of  them.  Modern  critics^  indeed,  would  discover 
a  more  honourable  source  of  this  morbid  querulous 
tone  of  sentiment,  in  the  poet's  feelings  of  distress 
and   humiUation    for  the  declininsr   fortunes   of  his 

o 

native  Ionian  confederacy,  exposed  to  the  aggres- 
sions and  encroachments  of  the  Lydian  monarchs. 
Appeal  has  been  more  especially  made  to  the  con- 
quest, by  those  monarchs,  of  various  flourishing 
Ionian  cities,  during  or  shortly  before  the  age  of 
Mimnermus  ;  to  that  of  Colophon  his  own  residence, 
by  Gyges  in  the  previous  generation  ;  and  to  that 
of  Smyrna,  Colophon's  most  distinguished  colony, 
possibly  his  birthplace,  taken  and  destroyed  by 
Halyattes  during  the  poet's  lifetime.  But  plausible 
as  this  mode  of  explaining  the  peculiarities  of  his 
style  may  be  in  theory,  it  is  certain  that  neither 
his  remains,  nor  the  notices  of  the  antient  com- 
mentators, afford  the  least  ground  of  belief  that 
patriotism,  or  politics  in  any  shape,  exercised  a  se- 
rious influence  on  the  tone  either  of  his  m.ind  or  of 
his  poetical  composition.  The  few  passages  allusive 
to  his  national  history  are,  in  fact,  among  the  least 
gloomy  or  repining  in  the  whole  collection.  While 
no  where  adverting  to  the  disasters  of  either  Smyrna 
or  Colophon,  he  refers^  with  apparent  pride  and  satis- 
faction to  the  exploits  of  his  Ionian  ancestors,  who 
"  crossing  from  Pylos  into  Asia,  settled  at  the  charm- 
"  ing  Colophon  ;  whence  issuing,  under  divine  aus- 
"  pices,  they  seized  and  possessed  the  JEolian  Smyr- 
"  na."  In  another  passage^  he  describes,  also  in  terms 
of  evident  exultation,  the  valour  displayed  by  a  warrior 

1  MiiU.  Hist,  of  Gr.  Lit.  xi.  viii.  p.  115. 

"^  Strab.  XIV.  p.  634. ;  frgg.  xii.  xiii.  ^  Frg.  xiii. 


336  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  IH. 

of  Smyrna,  in  the  course  of  some  early  war  of  that 
state  against  the  Lydians.     He  seems  also,  in  several 
incidental  texts,  to  intimate  with  some  plainness,  that 
however  alive  to  the  traditional  glories  of  his  fore- 
fathers, he  cared  comparatively  little  for  the  present 
condition  or  concerns  of  their  descendants,  his  own 
contemporaries.^      His    outbreaks   of  melancholy  or 
doleful  feeling,  on   the  other  hand,   are   all  concen- 
trated around  his  own  selfish,  and  in  great  part  trivial 
or  imaginary,  griefs  and  annoyances.     His  sensibility 
is  that  of  the  sensualist,  not  of  the  patriot ;   of  the 
martyr,  not  to  the  real  calamities  of  human  life,  but 
to  those  petty  ills,  if  such  they  can  be  called,  which 
are  in  a  great  measure  inseparable  from  human  ex- 
istence.    His  most  hateful  enemy  is,  not  the  Lydian 
with  his  battering-ram  or  fetters,  but  the  dtemon  of 
old  age,  despoiling  him  of  the  vigour  which  enables 
him  freely  to  participate  in  his  favourite  enjoyments, 
and  of  the  beauty  which  renders  him   pleasing  to 
those  qualified  to  bestow  them.     "  He  shudders,  and 
"  a  cold  sweat  pervades  his  frame,  when  he  thinks  how 
"  transient  are  the  fiowers  of  youth,  and  contemplates 
"  them  fading  on  his  own  brow.     Death  is  pronounced 
"  far  preferable  to  life,'  as  soon  as  the  fatal  bourn  is 
"  overstepped   which    separates   manhood    from    old 
"age."^     Upon  these  and  similar  images  he   dwells 
with  a  frequency,  a  copiousness,  and  an  earnestness, 
occasionally  even  a  monotonous   sameness  of  repeti- 
tion,  which  stamp  them  as  representing   his  domi- 
nant objects  of  interest.     Mimnermus  was  in  fact  a 
professed  man  of  pleasure ;    nor  is  there  reason  to 
believe    that    he  was  any    thing    more.     The    main 

'  Fror.  VII.  -  Frgg.  i.  in.  v. 


Ch.  VT.  §1.  MIMNERMUS.       600  E.  C.  337 

difference  between  him  and  the  ordinary  race  of 
Greek  debauchees,  as  represented  for  example  by 
his  fellow-poet  Anacreon,  was  that  the  Teian  bard 
was  a  joyous,  Mimnermus  a  discontented  voluptuary. 
Anacreon  cared  not  for  old  age.  The  spirit  which, 
in  spite  of  all  such  impediments,  enabled  him  to 
prosecute  his  jovial  career,  rather  adds  zest  to  his 
indulgence ;  and  when  Venus  proves  niggardly  of 
her  gifts,  he  finds  ample  consolation  in  the  never- 
failing  bounties  of  Bacchus.  To  the  morbid  but 
more  refined  sensibility  of  Mimnermus,  the  enjoy- 
ments of  the  table  appear  to  hold  out  comparatively 
little  charm.  His  pursuits  and  desires  are  chiefly  of 
the  amorous  kind ;  and  even  these,  unless  they  can 
be  indulged  with  a  certain  vigorous  freshness,  prove 
a  source  of  discontent  rather  than  of  gratification. 

These  peculiarities  of  his  character  are  comprehen- 
sively and  vividly  shadowed  forth  in  the  wish  ex- 
pressed by  him,  in  an  extant  and  highly  characteristic 
passage  of  his  works,  "  that  his  life  might  be  free 
"  from  disease  or  sorrow,  but  might  not  be  prolonged 
"  beyond  his  sixtieth  year : "  as  the  period  obviously, 
at  which  the  physical  powers,  even  without  disease, 
begin  seriously  to  decay.  To  this  sentiment  Solon, 
a  contemporary  and  acquaintance,  retorted  in  another 
epigram,  "  that  the  number  sixty,  under  these  con- 
ditions, might  well  be  corrected  into  eighty :  " 

M/^v.     at  yap  arsp  vov(raiv  rs  hoi  apyaT^ewv  ixsXshwvfov 
e^r^xovrasTYj  jaoipa  xl^oi  Qavccrou. 

S  0  X.        aXX'  si'  [xoi  xav  uuv  'in  Trs/o-sa/,  'i^sXs  to'jto, 
jU.rjO=  [xsyaip   or/  (rsO  "Ktoiov  i<Ppot.(rci.fxr}v ' 
xai  ixzra7roiy]<TOV,  AiyuacrruOrj,  cuOs  3'  a=i6=, 
oyOwHQvrairYi  ^xfjioa  xlyoi  (javdrou. 
VOL.  III.  Z  . 


33S  BIOGRAPHY    OF    LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

Mhn.     Oh  that  my  days,  free  from  disease  or  woe, 

On  placid  waters  down  life's  stream  may  flow  ; 
And  when  their  course  shall  reach  its  sixtieth  year, 
Death's  friendly  sleep  may  close  my  sojourn  here ! 

Sol,       Bear  with  me,  gentle  Colophonian  fi'iend. 
If  I  one  sentence  of  thy  wish  would  mend  : 
The  life  of  man,  on  terms  like  these  begun. 
Its  prosperous  course  full  eighty  years  may  run.* 

A  large  portion  of  his  remains  are,  accordingly, 
little  more  than  running  commentaries  on  the  above 
text,  dej^recating  the  approach  of  old  age,  and  in- 
voking death  as  a  friendly  ally  and  deliverer  from 
the  insidious  assaults  of  this  his  chief  or  only 
formidable  enemy. 

But,  although  Mimnermus  was  a  morbid  and  ef- 
feminate, and  in  so  far  a  contemptible  voluptuary,  he 
must  not  be  denied  the  honour  which  justly  belongs 
to  him,  of  a  degree  of  refinement  and  delicacy,  even 
purity  of  taste,    in   the  choice  and  pursuit  of  his 

*  Frg.  VI.;  conf.  Bergk,  Poett.  lyrr.  Fragm,  Mimn.  6.  p.  316.,  Fragm. 
Solonis,  22.  p.  331.  Several  modern  commentators  (Gaisf.  Sol.  frg.  i.  ed. 
Lips.  p.  134. ;  Miill.  Hist,  of  Gr.  Lit.  xi.  viii.  p.  115.)  have  taken  the  very 
strange  liberty  of  corrupting  the  terms  and  perverting  the  sense  of  these 
two  passages,  by  placing  the  number  eighty  in  the  mouth  of  Mimner- 
mus, and  sixty  in  that  of  Solon.  The  motive  for  this  proceeding 
appears  to  have  been  the  assumption,  that  as  Solon,  in  another  familiar 
text,  fixes  the  ordinary  and  natural  duration  of  human  old  age  at  seventy 
years,  it  was  not  likely  that  he  would  be  desirous  of  prolonging  the  life 
of  a  friend  to  eighty.  But  is  it  not,  on  the  other  hand,  qiute  as  unlikely 
that  he  would  be  desirous  of  depriving  a  friend  of  ten  full  years  of  his 
natural  life  ?  We  must  not,  however,  overlook  the  condition  by  which 
the  wish  of  Mimnermus  was  accompanied,  "  that  the  prescribed  period 
should  be  fi-ee  from  disease  or  sorrow."  With  this  condition,  even  the 
Infirmities  of  octogenarian  life,  however  distasteful  to  the  Colophonian 
sensualist,  might  be  quite  palatable  to  the  Athenian  philosopher.  The 
improbability,  to  say  the  least,  of  Mimnermus  ever  having  expressed  a 
wish  for  octogenarian  honours,  is  abundantly  proved  by  other  passages 
of  his  remains,  in  which  he  declares  he  would  far  rather  die  than 
outlive  the  vigour  of  his  physical  faculties. 


Cu.  VI.  §2.  MBINERMUS.       600  B.C.  06^ 

sensual  delights ;  a  combination  of  qualities  of  which 
it  might  perhaps  be  difficult  to  discover  another  ex- 
ample in  the  annals  of  Greek  luxurious  life.  That 
he  had  no  turn  for  intemperate  revelry,  or,  in  so  far 
as  existing  evidence  admits  of  our  judging,  for  any 
species  of  Bacchic  enjoyment  which  exceeded  the 
bounds  of  elegant  social  conviviality  \  has  already 
been  remarked.  As  little  trace  is  there,  either  in  his 
own  remains  or  in  the  authentic  notices  of  his  life,  of 
his  amorous  inclinations,  however  uncontrolled  within 
their  own  immediate  sphere,  having  ever  been  directed 
towards  those  more  degrading  walks  of  sensuality,  a 
taste  for  which  was  the  boast,  as  it  must  ever  remain 
the  indelible  shame  and  disgrace,  of  many  even  of 
the  more  enlightened  votaries  of  pleasure  among  his 
fellow-countrymen.^ 

2.  Mimnermus  seems  to  have  composed  exclusively  works. 
in  elegiac  measure.      He  also  established  a  certain  eiegfac 
claim  to  originality  in  the  cultivation  of  this  order  ^°^^^y- 
of  composition.     Although  the  elegy  had,   from  its 
first  beginnings,  a  mournful  tendency,  and  had  been 
awarded  a  preference  in  odes  of  a  funebral  or  me- 
lancholy character  by  Archilochus  and  other  early 
poets,  Mimnermus  is  the  first  author  who  peculiarly 
and  systematically  adapted  it  to  the  more  tender  class 
of  plaintive  subjects.     So  highly  appreciated  were  his 
claims  to  novelty,  if  not  to  absolute  originality,  in  this 
respect,  and  so  marked  the  terms  in  which  they  were 
asserted  by  his  admirers,  as  to  have  led  superficial 
critics,  both  antient  and  modern,  to  admit  him,  in  the 

'  Couf.  Horat.  Epist.  i.  vi.  65. 

-  On  the  corrupted  passage  of  Atlienfeus  (xv.  p.  699.),  which  some 
commentators  would  interi)ret  in  this  imflivourable  sense,  see  Bach, 
p.  IJ. 

z  2 


340  BIOGKAPHY   OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  TH. 

face  of  insuperable  chronological  difficulties,  to  a  com- 
petition with  Callinus  and  Archilochus  for  the  honour 
of  "  inventing  "  the  elegiac  measure  itself.  Setting 
aside  this  more  fanciful  title  to  priority,  Mimnermus 
enjoys,  perhaps  deservedly,  the  same  preeminence 
among  amatory  poets  of  the  elegiac  order,  as  Sappho 
among  the  cultivators  of  the  melic  branches  of  erotic 
poetry.  Propertius  ^  pronounces  his  amorous  muse, 
by  a  not  certainly  very  apposite  parallel,  superior  even 
to  that  of  Homer ;  and  Horace  ^,  with  more  propriety, 
awards  him  a  like  preference  to  Callimachus.  His 
works  were  also  honoured,  like  those  of  Archilochus 
and  other  distinguished  predecessors,  with  public  reci- 
tation by  professional  rhapsodists.  Their  value,  it 
may  be  presumed,  was  greatly  enhanced  in  the  esti- 
mation of  the  contemporary  audience,  by  the  musical 
accompaniment  with  which  they  were  provided  by 
their  author ;  Mimnermus  beinoj  no  less  distinojuished 
as  a  musician  than  as  a  poet.  The  instrument  on 
which  he  chiefly  excelled  was  the  flute  ■^,  the  one  more 
immediately  proper  to  the  Elegiac  Muse ;  and  he  is 
also  mentioned  as  the  author  of  several  popular  and 
apparently  able  and  elaborate  musical  compositions."* 
If,  as  the  tenor  of  the  extant  notices  imply,  the 
bulk  of  his  collective  works  were  love-songs,  but  a 
very  disproportionate  sample  of  them  is  aff'orded  by 
the  preserved  passages,  to  scarcely  a  single  one  of 
which  can  the  above  description  be  considered  strictly 

1  I.  ix.  11. 

*  Epist.  II.  ii.  101.;  conf.  Alex.  ^tol.  ap.  Athen.  xv.  699, 

^  Hermesian.  ap.  Athen.  xiii.  p.  598. ;  conf.  xv.  p.  620. ;  Suid.  v.  Mi/j.. ; 
Plut.  de  Mus.  IX. 

*  Among  others,  of  the  dirge  called  KpaStas  vopios,  performed  at  the 
procession  of  the  human  victims  of  Apollo,  in  the  Thargelia  and  other 
barbarous  rites  of  the  same  description.     Plut.  de  Mus. 


Cu.  VI.  §  2.  MIMNERMUS.       600  B.  C.  341 

applicable.  Among  those  of  sufficient  compass  to 
afford  any  distinct  criterion  of  the  nature  of  their 
subject,  seven  are  engrossed  with  his  favourite  com- 
plaints of  the  ephemeral  nature  of  worldly  enjoyment; 
two  contain  the  notices  above  referred  to,  of  his 
native  republic  Colophon  and  its  colony  Smyrna ;  as 
many  are  devoted  to  incidental  points  of  mythology ; 
while  the  remainder  consist  of  casual  remarks  on  men 
and  things.    The  whole  comprise  about  eighty  verses. 

The  most  celebrated,  as  it  was  probably  the  most 
bulky  composition  of  Mimnermus,  was  that  bearing 
the  name  of  his  mistress  Nanno,  in  two  books  ;  and 
from  it  are  derived  the  greater  number  of  passages  in 
the  preserved  collection.  The  precise  character  of 
this  poem  is  doubtful.  It  appears  to  have  been  too 
long  for  mere  love  elegy  or  encomial  address.  Nor 
do  the  extant  citations  betray  symptoms  of  the  style 
proper  to  such  productions.  The  most  probable  view 
is  that  already  noticed,  that,  like  the  Lyde  of  his  coun- 
tryman Antimachus,  the  Bittis  of  Philetas,  and  the 
Leontium  of  Hermesianax,  all  modelled  probably  on 
the  Nanno,  it  was  a  collection  of  poems  concentra- 
ted by  means  of  a  dedication,  or  perhaps  by  some  in- 
ternal link  of  connexion,  around  the  person  of  the  one 
more  engrossing  object  of  the  poet's  gallant  devotion.^ 

The  poetry  of  Mimnermus,  as  might  be  expected 
from  his  own  refined  effeminacy  of  character  and 
from  the  tenor  of  his  favourite  subjects,  is  more  re- 
markable for  elegance  of  expression  than  for  other 
more  sterling  qualities.  There  is  something,  indeed, 
in  the  querulous  selfishness  of  the  discontented  vo- 
luptuary Avhich,  in  spite  of  his  acknowledged  graces, 
of   diction    and    style,    can    hardly    fail    to    render 

'  Conf.  Bach,  p.  21. 


342  BIOGRAPHY    OF    LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

many  parts  of  his  collection  unpalatable  to  the 
reader  of  relincd  taste  or  judgement.  The  moral 
precepts  which  occasionally  beam  through  this  not 
very  favourable  medium,  inculcate  at  best  but  a 
meagre  as  well  as  morbid  system  of  ethics.  Nor 
are  the  few  graver  dogmas  of  poetical  philosophy 
which  he  inculcates  greatly  distinguished  for  either 
jDoint  or  originality.  One  of  the  most  effective  among 
them  is  a  paraphrase  ^  of  a  familiar  commentary  of 
Homer  on  the  vanity  of  human  life.  Much  indeed  of 
the  charm  of  several  others  of  his  best  passages,  con- 
sists in  an  elegant  adaptation  of  popular  Homeric 
ideas  and  phrases  to  his  own  elegiac  measure  and 
tone  of  expression.^  In  regard  to  all  the  subordi- 
nate details  of  poetical  mechanism,  his  style  may 
be  pronounced  unexceptionable.  His  versification 
is  tlirouo;hout  flowino;  and  harmonious ;  and  his 
language,  though  at  times  highly  ornate  and  abound- 
ing in  epithets,  is  free  from  bombast  or  affecta- 
tion. That  he  was  well  qualified  to  treat  subjects 
of  a  higher  order,  where  circumstances  occurred 
to  stimulate  his  muse  beyond  its  usual  feeble  range 
of  efforts,  is  evinced  by  the  passage  ^  above  re- 
ferred to,  describing  the  exploits  of  the  antient 
Smyrna3an  warrior.  This  is  certainly  the  most  cre- 
ditable specimen  of  his  art,  both  in  conception  and 
style.  Homeric  in  diction,  but  without  servile  imi- 
tation, and  breathing  a  masculine  energy  and  a  pa- 
triotic fire  worthy  of  Tyrtasus,  it  may  claim  to  rank 
among  the  noblest  applications  of  the  elegy  to  heroic 
subjects.  The  pleasure  derived  from  its  perusal  is 
in  some  degree  alloyed,  consequently,  by  the  reflexion 

*  Frg.  II. ;  conf.  H.  vi.  146.,  xxi.  464.  alibi. 

-  Conf.  also  frg.  ii.  9.  with  Hesiod.  0pp.  155.  ^  Frg.  xiv. 


Ch.  VI.  §  3.  SOLON.      634—554  B.  C.  343 

that  it  displays  a  mind  endowed  with  powers  of  the 
highest  order,  trammelled  in  their  exercise  by  the 
baser  sensual  influences  to  which  their  possessor  had 
voluntarily  subjected  himself. 

In  his  mythological  allusions,  Mimnermus  shows  a 
natural  partiality  for  the  popular,  sometimes  fantastic, 
novelties  of  the  lyric  school  of  art.  Like  Alcman,  he 
admitted  an  older  race  of  Muses,  daughters  of  Uranus^, 
and  distinct,  consequently,  from  the  daughters  of  Jove 
and  Mnemosyne,  who  alone  figure  in  the  primitive 
Homeric  and  Hesiodic  systems.  He  gave  twenty  chil- 
dren to  Niobe,  instead  of  the  more  classical  number 
of  twelve,  to  which  Homer  restricts  her  offspring. 
He  also  followed,  or  coincided  with,  Pisander  and  Ste- 
sichorus,  in  describing  the  chariot  of  the  sun  as  a 
golden  drinking-goblet,  the  workmanship  of  Vul- 
can ;  a  not  very  genial,  nor  indeed  very  intelligible 
specimen  of  mystical  allegory,  upon  which  he  ex- 
patiates in  one  of  his  most  beautiful  descriptions.- 
In  his  version  ^  of  the  Argonautic  legend,  also  cited 
by  Strabo  as  an  innovation,  here  a  very  elegant 
one,  on  the  popular  fable,  Jason  appears  to  have 
sought  and  found  his  golden  prize,  not  in  the  gloomy 
Scythian  regions  of  the  Euxine  Sea,  but  on  the  sunny 
banks  of  the  Eastern  Ocean.^ 


SOLON.     634-554.  B.  C. 

3.  There  may  be  some  readers  to  whom,  more  fami-  soion. 
liar  perhaps  with  the  political  than  with  the  literary 

^  Frg.  XI.  2  Frg.  ix.  3  prg.  x. 

^  Although  Mimnermus  occupies  a  high,  perhaps,  in  the  actual  me- 
chanism of  his  art,  the  highest  rank  among  Greek  elegiac  poets,  there  is 
no  notice  of  his  works  having  l)een  made  the  subject  of  specific  commen- 
tary by  any  of  the  leaeling  antient  grammarians. 

z  4 


344  BIOGRAPHY    OF    LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

annals  of  Greece,  the  life  and  actions  of  Solon,  the 
distinguished  philosopher,  statesman,  and  legislator, 
the   framer    of  an    elaborate    statutory  code    which 
formed  the  foundation  of  the  whole  subsequent  writ- 
ten law  of  Europe,  may  scarcely  appear  to  furnish  a 
chapter  in  the  purely  poetical  history  of  his  country. 
The  more  practised  Hellenist  however,  will  not  fail 
at  once  to  recognise,  in  the  section  devoted  to  this 
remarkable   man  and  to  his  fellow  sages  of  similar 
character,  a  necessary  as  well  as  appropriate  and  in- 
structive  conclusion   to   the  history  of  this  period. 
Solon's  life  and  times  may,   in  fact,    be   considered 
as  forming  in  themselves  both  a  line  of  demarcation 
and  a  link  of  connexion  between  the  poetical  and 
the  intellectual  age  of  Greece :  in  the  more  strictly 
political  capacity  in   which  he  is  familiarly  viewed, 
he  belongs   solely   or  chiefly  to  the  latter ;   in    the 
capacity  in  which  he  will  here  also  be  contemplated, 
as  a  votary  of  elegant  pursuit,  he  is  claimed  with 
equal  justice  by  the    former.     This  peculiarity  ac- 
quires an  additional  interest  from  the  mode  in  which 
the  two  apparently  distinct  elements  of  his  genius  are 
blended  into  one  in  their  active  exercise.     Great  as 
was  his  political  influence  on  the  destinies  of  Athens 
and  of  Greece,  his  earliest,  and  at  all  times  his  fa- 
vourite medium  for  the  exercise  of  that  influence  was 
strictly  poetical.     Instead  of  that  torrent  of  forensic 
eloquence  by  which  Pericles  and  Demosthenes  swayed 
the  will  of  their  fellow-citizens  to  their  purpose,  Solon 
resorted  with  equal  confidence  and  success  to  the  elo- 
quence of  his  muse.     But,  although  flourishing  prior 
to  the  epoch  at  which  prose  composition  had  obtained 
the  rank  of  a  cultivated  branch  of  literature,  he  may 
also  in  so  far  be  considered  as  in  advance  of  his  age, 


Ch.  VI.  §  3.  SOLON.       634— 554  B.C.  345 

that,  if  not  the  first  Attic  statesman  who  resorted  to 
this  more  practical  and  less  imaginative  mode  of  per- 
petuating facts  or  doctrines,  he  was  the  first  whose 
attempt  is  known  to  have  acquired  general  or  perma- 
nent authority.  He  might  thus,  in  right  of  the  scanty 
but  apparently  authentic  remains  of  his  code,  rank,  if 
not  as  a  popular  prose  writer,  as  at  least  the  first 
extant  author  of  Attic  prose  composition.  Closely 
identified  however,  as  are  the  political  and  the  literary 
element  of  his  character,  the  former,  it  is  obvious, 
opens  up  a  wide  field  of  commentary,  which  does  not 
properly  fall  within  our  present  limits.  Our  remarks 
on  his  life  and  influence  as  a  statesman,  will  therefore 
be  restricted  to  such  as  are  necessary  to  a  just  esti- 
mate of  his  genius  as  an  author.^ 

That  Solon  was  a  native  of  Athens,  or  at  least  of  Age,  wrth- 
Attica,  was  the  prevailing  opinion  of  the  antients,  Jjjj,'^^'^^" 
confirmed  by  the  indirect  notices  contained  in  his 
own  text.^  Some  however  describe  him  as  born  in 
the  isle  of  Salamis,  and  as  hence  by  courtesy  alone 
styled  an  Athenian.  But  this  view  is  scarcely  com- 
patible "svith  the  fact  which  assumed  so  prominent 
an  importance  in  his  biography  that  Salamis,  at 
the  period  of  his  nativity,  was  not  a  province  of  At- 
tica, having  been  first  annexed  to  that  state  by  him- 
self. In  regard  to  his  age,  the  only  point  very  clearly 
ascertained  is  the  date  of  his  legislation,  which  is 
placed  by  the  concurrent  testimony  of  the  best  autho- 
rities in  thexL\ath  Olympiad,  or  594  B.C.      Assuming 

^  Conf.  Bach,  Solonis  Carmina,  &c.  Bonn,  1825  ;  Gaisf.  Poett.  minn.  ed. 
Lips.  vol.  111.  p.  130. ;  Bergk,  Poett.  lyrr.  Gr.  p.  320.;  Schneidewin,  Delect. 
Poes.  Gr.  pt.  i.  p.  17.  The  remains  are  here  quoted  according  to  the 
arrangement  of  Gaisford,  unless  where  another  collection  is  specified. 

-  Diog.  Laert.  in  vit.  Sol.  i.  ii.  45. ;  Diod.  Sic  ix.  i. ;  Conf.  Bach, 
praif.  ad  Sol.  Fragiu.  p.  1.  i([i[. 


346  BIOGRAPHY    OF   LYRIC    POETS.  Book  HI. 

him  to  have  been  about  forty  years  of  age  at  this 
epoch,  and  to  have  lived  to  the  age  of  eighty,  as 
stated  by  Diogenes  Laertius^  his  birth  would  fall 
about  034,  his  death  in  554.  That  he  survived  the 
usurpation  of  Pisistratus,  which  took  place  in  560  B.C., 
is  admitted  by  all  authorities  ;  but  by  several  of  the 
more  trustworthy  he  is  said  to  have  died  but  two 
years  subsequent  to  that  event. ^  Little  attention  is 
due  to  the  account  of  Lucian,  that  he  lived  to  the  age 
of  a  hundred. 

The  family  of  Solon  was  among  the  most  illustrious 
of  Athens,  tracing  its  descent  from  the  antient  royal 
blood  of  the  Codridoe.^  His  father  was  a  citizen  of 
but  moderate  fortune,  whose  name  is  stated  by  the 
greater  number  of  authorities  to  have  been  Execes- 
tides^:  by  others  he  is  called  Euphorion.^  The 
latter  is  probably  the  real  name,  the  former  a  figu- 
rative surname  allusive  to  the  "healing"  legislative 
reforms  of  the  owner's  son,  and  finds  its  parallel  in 
the  similarly  significant  patronymics  of  Cycleus  and 
Ligyastades,  above  alluded  to  in  the  lives  of  Arion 
and  Mimnermus.  Solon's  mother  was  first  cousin 
to  the  mother  of  Pisistratus  ^ ;  and  his  personal  con- 
nexion with  that  celebrated  usurper,  which  in  later  life 
assumed  so  great  public  importance,  is  said  to  have 
been  in  his  earlier  days  of  the  most  atfectionate,  not 
perhaps  of  the  most  innocent  nature,'  While  yet  a 
young  man,  he  was  induced  to  travel  upon  mercantile 
speculation ;  according  to  some  accounts,  with  a  view 

^  In  vlt.  6-2.;  conf.  Clint.  Fast.  Hell.  vol.  i.  pp.  227.  231. ;  Bach,  op. 
cit.  p.  2.  sqq.  -  Plut.  in  vit.  xxxii. 

*  Plut.  in  vit.  I.  ;  Diog.  Laert.  vit.  Plat.  init.  ;  Suid.  v.  KoppiSris. 

*  Plut.  loc.  cit.  s  Didym.  ap.  Plut.  loc.  cit. 

**  Heraclid.  ap.  Plut.  in  vit.  i.  ■  Plut.  loc.  cit. 


Ch.  VI.  §4.  SOLON.       634— 554  B.C.  347 

of  bettering  his  family  affairs ;  in  other  accounts,  cu- 
riosity and  thirst  of  knowledge  are  assigned  as  his 
motive.^ 

4.  Solon's  first  efforts  in  poetry  are  described  by  Early  life. 
his  antient  biographers  as  light  fancy  pieces,  of  an  ^'f"""""'" 
amorous  or  convivial  tendency,  composed  for  his  own 
amusement  or  that  of  his  friends.^  His  compositions 
of  this  kind  however,  as  their  existing  remains  prove, 
were  not  confined  to  his  youth.  At  a  more  mature 
age,  the  political  vicissitudes  of  his  country  led  him 
to  direct  his  genius  to  nobler  purposes.  Athens  had 
long  been  involved  in  a  severe  contest  with  the  neigh- 
bouring Dorian  state  of  Megara,  for  the  possession 
of  the  isle  of  Salamis,  which  lay  contiguous  to  the 
coast  of  both  countries.  The  Athenians  having,  after 
many  sufferings  and  sacrifices,  been  worsted  in  the 
struggle,  and  seeing  little  prospect  of  its  ultimate 
success,  determined  to  abandon  it  altogether,  and 
passed  a  law  denouncing  the  penalty  of  death  against 
whosoever  should  propose  the  renewal  of  hostilities. 
This  self-imposed  humiliation  of  his  country  was 
deeply  felt  by  her  future  legislator,  in  common 
with  many  other  men  of  spirit  among  his  fellow- 
countrymen.  For  long  the  terror  of  the  decree  pre- 
vented any  public  declaration  of  their  sentiments, 
until  the  boldness  and  ingenuity  of  Solon  struck  out 
an  expedient  for  evading  the  law,  and  rousing  the 
more  apathetic  citizens  to  a  sense  of  their  disgrace. 
Shutting  himself  up  in  his  house,  he  caused  it  to  be 
reported  that  he  had  suddenly  become  deranged.  In 
his  retirement  he  occupied  himself  in  composing  an 
ode  adapted  to  his  purpose,  which  he  committed  to 

'   Plut.  in  vlt.  ij.  111.  -'  riut.  loe.  cit. 


348  BIOGRAPHY   0¥    LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

memory.  Having  fully  matured  his  design,  in  concert 
with  a  chosen  few  of  the  friends  who  shared  his  pa- 
triotic feelings,  and  among  whom,  according  to  some 
not  very  valid  authorities,  Avas  the  youthful  Pisistratus, 
he  selected  for  its  execution  the  day  of  a  great  public 
assembly.  Rushing  into  the  agora  with  wild  ges- 
tures and  disordered  attire,  he  appealed  to  the  multi- 
tude in  the  assumed  character  of  a  herald  from  the 
"  Sacred  Island  "  to  the  Athenian  people,  exhorting 
them,  in  an  address  of  a  hundred  spirited  lines,  to 
make  another  attempt  at  reasserting  their  meanly 
reUnquished  rights.  The  stratagem  wfls  completely 
successful.  His  own  confederates  loudly  applauded 
his  proposal,  and  were  backed  by  the  popular  voice. 
The  repeal  of  the  law  was  carried  by  acclamation. 
In  the  sequel,  by  a  series  of  successful  measures,  also 
planned  and  executed  by  Solon,  the  island  was  con- 
quered, and,  under  the  auspices  and  arbitration,  as 
is  said,  of  the  Spartan  government,  was  permanently 
annexed  to  the  Athenian  dominions.^ 
Sacred  war.  Solou  ucxt  appears  as  a  leading  promoter  of  the 
"  Sacred  war,"  -  carried  on  by  the  Amphictyons 
against  the  Cirrhseans,  on  account  of  their  sacrilegious 
usurpation  of  the  privileges  and  funds  of  the  Pythian 
sanctuary.  Another  transaction  of  importance  in 
which  he  engaged,  and  which  has  already  been  no- 
ticed in  the  life  of  Epimenides,  was  the  purification 
of  Athens  from  the  stain  of  blood  and  sacrilege,  called 
the  "  Cylonian  curse."  For  the  successful  perform- 
ance of  this  duty,  as  also  for  various  provisions 
embodied  in  his  legislative  code,  tradition  reports  him 

'  Plut.  in  vlt.  vni.  sq. ;  Diog.  Laert.  in  vit.  46.  sqq. ;  conf.  Aristot. 
Rhct.  1.  xvi. ;  Herodot.  i.  lix. 
-  riut.  in  vit.  XI. ;  Aristot.  ibid. 


Ch.  VI.  §4.  SOLON.       634— 554  B.C.  349 

to  have  been  greatly  indebted  to  the  advice  and  sug- 
gestions of  the  Cretan  sage.^ 

The  removal  of  these  impediments  to  the  pros-  Legislative 
perity  of  the  republic,  instead  of  conducting  to  its 
tranquillity,  appears  rather  to  have  had  an  opposite 
effect,  by  affording  fresh  opportunity  for  the  prose- 
cution of  those  internal  feuds,  which  pestilence  or 
foreign  war  had  for  a  time  at  least  the  advantage 
of  suspending.  The  old  contentions  of  the  "  Moun- 
tain," the  "  Plain,"  and  the  "  Shore,"  the  pastoral, 
agricultural,  and  maritime  classes  of  the  citizens, 
again  broke  out  with  renewed  virulence.^  The  evils 
of  faction  were  aggravated  by  the  distressed  condition 
of  the  lower  order  of  citizens,  overwhelmed  with 
debts  to  their  wealthier  neighbours.  The  unhappy 
condition  of  the  republic  at  this  period,  has  been  elo- 
quently described  by  Solon  in  extant  passages  allusive 
to  his  own  reforms.^  The  burthens  of  the  poorer 
class  were  rendered  the  more  intolerable  by  the  seve- 
rity of  the  law  of  creditor  and  debtor,  which  entitled 
the  former  to  rights  of  vassalao^e  over  the  defaultino- 

Do  O 

client,  or  even  to  sell  him  abroad  into  slavery,  if  per- 
manently unable  to  fulfil  his  engagements.  In  this 
emergency,  a  general  desire  arose  for  a  new  and  more 
equitable  system  of  laws,  by  which  the  poor  hoped  to 
be  relieved  of  a  portion  of  their  burthens,  and  the 
rich  to  have  the  power  of  enforcing  their  obligations 
placed  on  a  more  definite  and  less  invidious  footing. 
Solon  was  by  common  consent  intrusted  with  the 
important  duty  of  compiling  the  improved  code,  and 
was  appointed  archon,  with  enlarged  authority  for 
carrying  his  ordinances  into  effect.     His  own  parti- 

'  Supra,  B.  ii.  Ch.  xxi.  §  6.  ^  Plut.  in  vit.  xiii. 


350  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  III. 

sans  are  said  to  have  strongly  urged  him  to  put  an 
end  at  once  to  the  evils  of  anarchy  by  a  permanent 
usurpation  of  supreme  power.^  But  his  virtue  was 
proof  against  this  temptation,  as  well  as  against  the  ri- 
dicule to  which,  as  appears  from  still  extant  passages 
of  his  works,  his  patriotic  scruples  exposed  him.^ 
Aware  of  the  fickle  temper  of  his  countrymen,  he 
took  the  precaution,  before  promulgating  his  code,  of 
exacting  from  them  an  oath  to  maintain  its  enact- 
ments inviolable  during  a  period  of  at  least  ten  years. 
The  wisdom  of  this  measure  was  afterwards  fully 
justified. 

It  would  be  transgressing  the  bounds  of  Solon's 
literary  biography,  to  enlarge  on  the  merits,  defects, 
or  peculiarities  of  his  legislative  system.  With 
many  excellences,  amply  approved  by  the  subsequent 
experience  of  Greece  and  Europe,  that  system  com- 
bined, like  all  human  productions,  an  alloy  of  faults  and 
anomalies.  Some  of  these  were  acknowledged  and 
defended  by  their  author^,  on  the  ground  that  his 
policy  had  been  to  give  the  Athenians,  not  theoreti- 
cally the  best  laws,  but  the  best  which,  under  the 
circumstances,  they  were  qualified  to  enjoy.  In  one 
of  his  political  elegies  ^,  he  himself  describes  the  or- 
dinances of  his  code  as  extending  in  much  detail  to 
all  the  relations  of  civil  and  social  life.  Among  the 
chief  defects  accordingly,  imputed  to  his  laws,  was  a 
want  of  precision  in  these  details,  and  the  consequent 
wide  opening  which  they  afforded  for  litigation  ;  de- 
fects to  which  probably  all  elementary  codes  must,  in 
the  ordinary  complications  of  society,  be  more  or  less 
liable. 

I  Plut.  in  vit.  XIV.  -  Frgg.  xxv.  xxvii. 

'  Plut.  in  XV.  sqq. ;  conf.  fig.  vii.  *  Frg.  xxviii.  v.  16.  sq. 


Cu.VI.  §5.  SOLON.       G34— 554B.C.  351 

5.  The  consequence  however  of  this  ambiguity,  Travels, 
whether  the  fault  of  the  legislator  or  of  the  materials 
with  which  he  had  to  deal,  Avas,  that  no  sooner  had 
the  system  been  brought  into  full  operation,  than  he 
was  appealed  to  on  all  sides  for  counsel  and  guidance 
in  obscure  or  doubtful  questions.^  Apart  from  the 
constant  interruption  of  his  leisure  to  which  he  was 
thus  exposed,  the  difficulty,  in  more  subtle  cases,  of 
satisfying  the  applicants,  gave  plausible  opening  to 
the  charge  of  inconsistency,  ignorance,  or  breach  of 
his  own  statutes.  Under  these  circumstances  he  again, 
on  pretext  of  commercial  pursuits,  quitted  Athens  ^, 
with  the  intention  of  sojourning  abroad  during  the 
remainder  of  the  ten  years  of  unconditional  obser- 
vance of  his  code  for  which  he  had  stipulated  on  the 
part  of  the  citizens  ;  in  the  hope  that  the  new  institu- 
tions might,  during  his  absence,  acquire  the  force  of 
custom  in  addition  to  the  solemnity  of  law.  He  first 
visited  Egypt,  and  conferred  with  the  priests  of  that 
country  relative  to  the  early  history,  physical  and 
political,  of  his  native  Greece.  The  nature  and  re- 
sults of  his  intercourse  real  or  fabulous  with  those 
learned  persons,  will  supply  matter  for  further  con- 
sideration in  the  sequel. 

From  Egypt  he  sailed  to  Cyprus,  where  he  was 
hospitably  received  and  entertained  by  Philocyprus  ^, 
a  prince  of  the  island,  who  was  indebted  to  his  guest 
for  various  useful  suggestions  as  to  the  better  govern- 
ment of  his  own  territory.  In  commemoration  of 
these  benefits  and  of  the  legislator's  visit,  the  capital 
city  of  the  district,  when  removed  by  Solon's  advice 

1  Plut.  in  vlt.  XXV. 

^  Plut.  in  vit.  XXVI.  sqq.  ;  conf.  Ilerodot.  i.  xxix. 

'  Plut.  in  vit.  XXVI. ;  conf.  Herodot.  v.  cxiii. 


352  BIOGRAPHY    OF    LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

to  a  better  situation,  is  said  to  have  been  named 
Interview  Soloi.  The  distinguished  traveller  afterwards  passed 
sus.  '  into  Asia  Minor,  and  visited  Sardis  the  Lydian  capital, 
where,  if  Herodotus  may  be  trusted,  he  met  with  an 
honourable  reception  from  Croesus,  the  last  and  most 
celebrated  sovereign  of  the  Lydian  monarchy.  The 
narrative  of  this  visit,  familiar  as  it  is  to  every  classi- 
cal reader,  as  one  of  the  most  popular  episodes  in 
the  work  of  the  most  popular  Greek  historian  \  can 
yet  hardly  with  propriety  be  omitted  in  a  chapter 
of  literary  history  devoted  to  the  life  and  character 
of  Solon  : 

Narrative  of  "  After  several  days  of  hospitable  entertainment,  the  king,  con- 
Herodotus,  ducting  his  guest  through  the  palace,  and  displaying  its  accumulated 
treasures,  asked  him,  nothing  doubting  of  the  reply,  whether,  in 
the  course  of  his  long  and  varied  experience  of  life,  he  had  ever 
met  with  so  fortunate  a  man  as  the  possessor  of  these  vast  riches. 
To  this  question  Solon,  more  studious  of  truth  than  flattery,  an- 
swered in  the  affirmative,  mentioning  the  name  of  Tellus  the 
Athenian.  On  being  asked  in  what  respect  he  considered  this 
man's  lot  preferable  to  that  of  the  Lydian  monarch,  he  replied, 
'that  Tellus  Avas  blessed  with  a  fine  family  of  children,  all  of 
whom  he  lived  to  see  parents  of  an  equally  excellent  progeny ; 
that  in  the  midst  of  tliis  domestic  happiness  he  had,  in  a  battle 
between  the  Athenians  and  Eleusinians,  after  putting  the  enemy 
to  flight  by  his  valour,  met  his  death  in  the  moment  of  victory.' 
Croesus  then  inquired  of  him,  whom,  after  Tellus,  he  considered 
the  most  fortunate,  trusting  confidently  to  obtain  at  least  the 
second  place  ;  but  he  was  again  disappointed.  The  next  in  the 
philosopher's  list  were  '  Cleobis  and  Biton,  two  noble  youths  of 
Argos,  not  less  distinguished  for  tlie  virtues  of  their  mind  than  for 
their  athletic  powers.  On  occasion  of  the  feast  of  Juno,  the 
oxen  failing  to  arrive  from  the  counti'y,  they  yoked  themselves  to 
their  mother's  car,  and  drew  her  a  distance  of  forty-five  stadia  to 
the  sanctuary.  While  the  assembled  Argives  extolled  the  Her- 
culean strength  and  filial  piety  of  their  young  fellow-countrymen, 
the  grateful  mother  besought  the  gods  to  reward  tliem  with  the 

'  Herodot.  i.  xxx. 


Ch.  VI.  §5.  SOLON.       G34— 554B.C.  353 

choicest  blessing  they  had  to  bestow.  Her  desire  was  speedily  ful- 
filled. Her  sons,  after  participating  in  the  sacrifice  and  feast,  lay 
down  side  by  side  in  the  temple  to  repose  from  their  toil,  and, 
falling  asleep,  never  again  awoke.  The  Argives,  esteeming  them 
among  the  most  excellent  of  their  citizens,  dedicated  statues  to 
their  honour  in  the  Delphic  sanctuary.' 

"At  this  the  king,  much  mortified,  asked  '  if  no  place  whatever 
was  to  be  allotted  to  himself  by  the  side  of  these  private  citizens, 
in  the  scale  of  human  happiness.'  Solon  replied,  '  that  he  was 
no  doubt  at  that  moment  a  wealthy  and  flourishing  monarch  ;  but 
that  to  confer  on  him  or  any  other  mortal  the  title  of  Happy 
would  be  premature,  before  his  claim  to  it  had  been  ratified  by  a 
death  corresponding  to  the  previous  prosperity  of  his  life  ;  that, 
in  the  vicissitudes  of  human  existence,  the  brightest  sunshine  of 
youth  and  manhood  was  often  but  a  prelude  to  a  cloudy  and  cala- 
mitous old  age.'  These  remarks  at  the  time  did  but  excite  the 
contempt  of  Croesus  for  the  folly  of  the  man,  who  was  thus  unfitted 
to  appreciate  present  good  by  morbid  anticipations  of  future  evil. 
But  when,  not  long  after,  the  Lydiau  monarchy  was  subdued  by 
tlie  Persians,  and  Croesus  himself  became  the  prisoner  of  Cyrus, 
the  warning  of  the  Athenian  sage,  recurring  to  his  recollection, 
proved  the  means  of  delivering  him  from  a  cruel  death  prepared 
for  him  by  his  conqueror." 

The  sequel  of  the  story  belongs  not  to  the  history  of 
Solon  but  to  that  of  Croesus. 

The  details  of  this  pleasing  and  impressive  nar- 
rative, though  closely  interwoven  with  the  conviction 
of  the  Hellenic  public,  savour  greatly,  it  must  be 
admitted,  of  that  superstructure  of  didactic  em- 
bellishment which,  in  the  popular  Greek  tradition 
even  of  historical  ages,  is  often  apt  to  be  reared  on  a 
comparatively  slender  basis  of  fact.  The  very  ap- 
positeness  of  the  contrast,  so  eloquently  drawn  by 
the  historian,  between  Greek  republican  simplicity 
and  Oriental  pomp,  between  the  calm  philosophic 
foresight  of  the  European  sage  and  the  vainglorious 
self-sufficiency  of  the  Eastern  despot,  might  tend  to 

VOL.  Ill,  A  A 


354  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  III. 

awaken  suspicion  as  to  the  historical  value  of  the 
details,  at  least,  of  the  narrative.  But  the  whole 
account,  even  of  the  legislator's  visit  to  Sardis,  has 
been  further  impugned,  and  with  some  force,  upon 
chronoloo;ical  o;rounds.  Accordino-  to  the  well  au- 
thenticated  order  of  succession  in  the  Lydian  royal 
family,  the  death  of  Alyattes,  father  of  Croesus,  with 
the  latter  monarch's  accession  to  the  throne,  did  not 
take  place  until  560  b.  c,  the  year  of  the  usurpa- 
tion of  Pisistratus.  This  latter  event  is  equally 
well  ascertained  to  have  been  posterior  to  the  philo- 
sopher's return  from  his  travels,  and  resettlement  in 
Athens  after  his  voluntary  expatriation.  Croesus, 
consequently,  could  not  have  been  the  reigning  sove- 
reign of  Lydia  at  the  epoch  assigned  by  Herodotus 
to  Solon's  visit  to  the  court  of  Sardis.  It  has  been 
attempted  to  evade  this  difficulty,  and  save  the  cre- 
dit of  the  historian,  by  assuming  Croesus  to  have 
been  associated  with  his  father  in  the  government  at 
an  earlier  period,  to  which  the  narrative  of  Herodo- 
tus may  refer.  This  apology  however,  at  the  best 
somewhat  far-fetched,  is  precluded  by  the  tenor  of 
the  historian's  own  text.  Alyattes  is  there  plainly 
represented  as  already  dead ;  and  Croesus,  not  only 
as  reigning  in  an  independant  capacity  long  after 
the  death  of  his  father,  but  as  having,  in  the  interval 
between  that  event  and  the  philosopher's  visit,  had 
time  to  achieve  the  conquest  of  the  greater  part  of 
Asia  Minor.  Any  attempt,  therefore,  to  adjust  the 
narrative  of  Herodotus  to  the  chronology  of  the 
period  were  fruitless.  There  appear  but  two  modes 
of  upholding  the  truth  of  the  substantial  facts  of  the 
story,  both  involving  a  sacrifice  of  the  historian's 
credit  in  regard  to  its  particulars.     The  first  would 


\ 


Cii.  VI.  §6.  SOLON.       634— 554  B.C.  3.55 

be,  to  adopt  the  version  transmitted  by  Diogenes 
Laertius^  which  connects  Solon's  visit  to  Lydia  with 
a  second  retirement  from  Athens,  after  the  failure  of 
his  efforts  to  counteract  the  schemes  or  overthrow  the 
usurped  dominion  of  Pisistratus.  The  other  hypo- 
thesis would  be,  that  Solon  really  had  been  the  guest 
of  Croesus  during  the  lifetime  of  that  prince's  father, 
but  that  Herodotus,  in  deference  to  the  popular 
tradition,  or  following  the  dictates  of  his  own  taste, 
had  worked  up  the  anecdote  into  the  form  best 
suited  to  his  object  of  contrasting  with  each  other 
the  genius  of  the  two  men,  and  of  the  state  of  society 
which  they  respectively  represent.^  It  is  probable 
that  Solon,  on  his  first  visit  to  Asia,  may  have 
formed  the  acquaintance  with  Mimnermus,  which  led 
to  the  poetical  correspondence  between  them  ad- 
verted to  in  a  previous  section. 

6.  During  the  absence  of  their  legislator,  the  Return  to 
levity  of  the  Athenians  broke  through  all  the  re-  joeath.^ 
straints  which  his  wisdom  or  authority  had  imposed 
on  their  factious  spirit,  and  the  strife  among  the 
parties  of  the  Mountain,  the  Plain,  and  the  Shore 
soon  raged  with  its  former  virulence.^  His  return 
took  place  when  the  disturbance  was  at  its  height, 
and  all  his  influence  was  exerted,  though  vainly,  to 
promote  an  accommodation.  He  succeeded  however 
in  penetrating,  though  not  in  counteracting,  the  insi- 
dious design  formed  by  his  own  cousin  and  friend 
Pisistratus,  leader  of  the  democratic  party,  to  con- 

1  In  Tit.  Sol.  50. 

^  Plutarch  (in  vit.  xxviii.)  enlarges  here,  as  in  some  other  similar 
cases,  the  element  of  fable,  by  the  introduction  of  ^.sop,  as  the  court 
wit  of  the  Lydian  king,  reproving  the  philosopher  for  the  morose  un- 
mannerly boorishness  of  his  demeanour  towards  royalty. 

*  Plut.  in  vit.  XXIX.  sq. 

A    A    2 


356  BIOGRAPHY    OF   LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

vert  the  political  restlessness  of  his  countrymen  into 
the  instrument  of  his  own  aggrandisement,  and  of 
the  overthrow  of  their  liberties.  Solon  left  no  means 
unemployed  to  divert  him  from  his  mischievous 
purpose,  whether  by  friendly  expostulation  or  open 
opposition.  Even  after  the  establishment  of  the 
*'  Tyranny  "  he  continued  to  protest  against  it,  and  to 
endeavour,  by  arguments,  entreaties,  and  reproaches, 
to  rouse  his  countrymen  to  a  sense  of  their  degra- 
dation. They,  on  their  side,  unable  either  to  meet 
his  remonstrances  or  to  justify  their  own  conduct,  had 
recourse  to  their  favourite  expedient  in  such  emer- 
gencies, of  giving  the  affair  a  burlesque  turn.  They 
directed  against  him  the  stratagem  he  had  formerly 
employed  for  their  own  benefit,  and  pronounced  the 
enthusiasm  of  his  opposing  eloquence  to  be  a  re- 
turn of  his  old  Salaminian  fit  of  insanity.^  At 
length,  when  no  hope  remained  of  restoring  the  con- 
stitution, collecting  his  arms,  he  deposited  them  in 
the  vestibule  of  his  house,  towards  the  street,  as  a 
symbol  that  he  had  not  given  up  the  cause  of  liberty 
until  utterly  desperate.'^  In  the  sequel,  according 
to  the  more  accredited  accounts,  unable  to  prevent 
the  evil,  he  did  his  best  to  mitigate  it.  With 
this  view,  during  the  short  remainder  of  his  life, 
which  closed,  according  to  the  more  authentic  ac- 
counts, but  a  few  years  after  the  establishment  of 
the  "  Tyranny,"  he  adopted  a  conciliatory  line  of 
conduct  towards  the  usurper.^  Pisistratus  on  his 
part,  who  possessed  every  quality  which  can  adorn 
the  Attic  citizen  but  that  of  disinterested  res^ard 
for  republican  liberty,  willingly  renewed,  upon  this 

^  Diog.  in  vit.  49. ;  fvg.  xaii. 

=  Plut.  in  vit.  XXX. ;  ^lian.  V.  H.  viii.  xvi.  ^  Plut.  in  vit.  xxxii. 


Ch.  VI.  §6.  SOLON.       G34— 554B.C.  357 

footing,  the  antient  friendly  relations  with  his  dis- 
tinguished kinsman,  and  cooperated  with  him  in 
enforcing  and  improving  the  new  system  of  legis- 
lation, in  all  points  not  immediately  interfering  with 
his  own  usurped  power. ^  Other  less  valid  authorities 
represent  the  legislator,  on  the  overthrow  of  the 
republic,  as  again  retiring  from  Athens,  and  settling 
at  the  court  of  Croesus.  Some  describe  him  as  re- 
turning to  Cyprus,  and  ending  his  days  as  the  guest 
of  his  former  host  Philocyprus.^  Diogenes^,  on  the 
authority  of  Aristotle  and  of  Cratinus  the  comic 
poet,  relates  that  his  ashes,  in  terras  of  his  own 
testamentary  injunction,  were  conveyed  to  Salamis, 
and  scattered  over  the  surface  of  that  island,  around 
which  so  many  glorious  associations  of  his  early  life 
were  concentrated.  This  tradition  however  is  ridi- 
culed, in  a  somewhat  flippant  tone,  by  Plutarch  ^ ; 
and  ^lian^  describes  the  philosopher  as  buried  at 
Athens,  near  the  wall  of  the  city,  on  the  right  hand 
of  one  of  the  principal  gates. 

The  character  of  Solon  appears  in  a  more  unex-  Private 
ceptionable  light  as  contemplated  in  his  political 
than  in  his  private  and  social  relations.  In  his 
public  conduct,  disinterested  patriotism,  military 
prowess,  and  honesty  of  purpose  appear  combined 
with  deep  knowledge  of  human  nature,  penetrating 
judgement,  and  conciliatory  temper.  In  his  social 
life,  the  dignity  of  the  philosopher  and  statesman 
was  sullied  ^  by  habits  of  sensual  indulgence,  in- 
clusive even  of  certain  of  the  more  scandalous  vices 
which  disgraced  his  age  and  country,  but  his  propen- 

I  Plut.  in  vit.  XXXI.  '  Diog.  Laert.  in  vit.  62. ;  Sulci,  v.  :s.6kMv. 

^  Loc.  cit.  *  In  vit.  xxxii. 

*  V.  H.  vjii.  xvi.  '■'  riut.  in  vit.  i.  alibi. 

A   A    o 


character. 


358  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book.  III. 

sity  to  which  he  seems  himself  to  have  considered  as 
an  honourable  trait  of  his  character  rather  than  as  a 
ground  of  reproach.  This  latter  inference  is  war- 
ranted, not  only  by  the  remains  of  his  lighter  compo- 
sitions ^,  where  a  taste  for  deo-radins;  sensualities  is 
very  plainly,  or  even  coarsely,  expressed,  but  by  cer- 
tain provisions  of  his  code^,  regarding  the  class  of 
persons  to  whom,  or  the  circumstances  under  which, 
a  participation  in  such  excesses  was  to  be  conceded. 
In  one  of  his  epigrams  he  couples  these  less  honour- 
able sources  of  gratification  with  athletic  exercises, 
horsemanship,  the  chase,  and  the  rites  of  hospitality. 
Solon  was  never  married^,  and  seems  in  no  way  to 
have  appreciated  the  value  of  domestic  life.  Even  in 
his  old  age  he  describes  Bacchus  and  Venus  as  the 
•best  coadjutors  of  the  Muses  in  mitigating  the  cares, 


^  Frg.  II.  sqq. 

-  Plut.  iu  vit.  I.  There  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt  that  the  ex- 
pression vSfios,  used  by  Plato  in  his  Symposium  with  reference  to  the 
Attic  Paederastia  (p.  182.  sqq.,  and  especially  p.  196  c),  and  which  has 
been  loosely  interpreted  by  the  commentators  "  custom  or  usage,"  really 
applies  to  a  law  of  the  state,  probably  of  Solon.  The  law,  indeed,  is 
quoted  in  the  legislator's  own  words  by  ^schines  (contr.  Timarch.  p.  19.)  ; 
and  additional  details  of  this  strange  chapter  of  his  code  are  given  by 
other  authorities  :  6  5e  ^6\cov  iv  ro'is  vSfiois  kuI  iroaovs  in^xf^  airexovTa 
aKo\ovde7t^  SeT  Thv  ipacrrriv  r^  epwixevc^  SeSrjAci'Ke,  ku'i  to7s  i\€v6epois  rh  iTrtrrjdevfia 
TCTTJpijKe,  K.T.A.  Anon.  ap.  Bach,  p.  13.  It  is  also  remarkable,  that 
throughout  the  poetry  of  Solon,  among  his  numerous  allusions  to  the 
sensual  pleasures  of  life,  there  is  not  one  to  inter-sexual  love.  The 
attempts  of  Plato  (De  Legg.  viii.  p.  839.),  Plutarch,  and  others,  to 
explain  away  the  more  licentious  tendencies  of  the  legislator,  as  mere 
ebullitions  of  the  fervour  of  his  youthful  passions,  are  completely  set 
aside  by  an  extant  passage  of  his  own  poems  (frg.  ii.)  descriptive  of  the 
favourite  occupations  of  his  old  age. 

^  Plutarch's  story  (vi.)  of  the  trick  played  by  Thales  on  the  legislator, 
in  which  a  son  of  the  latter  is  made  to  take  part,  is  evidently  a  fable.  It 
is  given  by  Plutarch  accordingly,  on  the  very  appropriate  authority  of  a 
certain  Patsecus,  who  boasted  that  his  body  contained  the  soul  of  ^sop. 


Ch.  VI.  §  6.  SOLON.       634—554  B.C.  359 

or  soothing  the  privations,  with  which  the  decline  of 
life  was  attended.  The  genius  of  this  remarkable 
man  may  thus,  both  in  its  excellence  and  in  its  de- 
fects, be  considered  as  a  type  of  that  of  his  race.  The 
virtue  of  the  Athenian  citizen  neither  was,  nor  as 
among  their  Spartan  neighbours  affected  to  be,  ex- 
empt from  the  weakness  of  the  man  ;  and  firmness, 
prudence,  and  integrity  in  the  business  of  life,  were 
often  combined  with  a  vicious  susceptibility  of  its 
enjoyments. 

The  merits  of  Solon  as  an  encourager  of  literature, 
are  chiefly  concentrated  around  his  regulations  for  tlie 
more  orderly  recital  of  the  Homeric  poems  in  the  public 
festivities.^  He  has  also  the  credit  of  having  interpo- 
lated verse  558.  of  the  Catalogue  of  the  Iliad,  in  support 
of  the  claims  of  Athens  to  the  possession  of  Salamis. 
That  the  story  of  his  opposition  to  the  dramatic  en- 
tertainments of  Thespis  is  a  fable,  is  sufficiently  clear 
even  upon  chronological  grounds.  The  first  intro- 
duction of  those  entertainments  into  Athens  (535  B.C.) 
took  place  twenty  years  after  the  death  of  Solon." 
The  fabulousness  of  the  story  is  further  proved  by 
its  absurdity,  as  narrated  by  the  popular  authorities. 
Plutarch  makes  the  philosopher  inveigh,  in  a  highly 
poetical  strain  of  rhetoric,  against  the  immoral  ten- 
dency of  exhibitions  which  represented  falsehoods  in 
the  disguise  of  truth ;  as  if  there  was  any  greater  false- 
hood in  the  mythical  adventures  acted  by  Thespis, 
than  in  many  of  those  "  rhapsodised  "  under  Solon's 


1  See  Vol.  I.  p.  204. 

*  The  author  has  observed  with  some  surprise,  that  both  in  Grote's 
History  of  Greece  (vol.  iii.  p.  194.),  and  in  the  article  Solon  of  Smith's 
Diet,  of  Biogr.,  this  fable  has  been  allowed  a  place  among  the  ascertained 
historical  facts  of  Solon's  life. 

A  A   4 


360  BIOGRAPHY    OF    LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

own  auspices.^  Diogenes'-  goes  still  further,  and  as- 
serts that  Solon  attributed  the  success  of  the  plot  of 
Pisistratus  against  the  liberties  of  the  state,  to  the 
lessons  of  intrigue  which  the  usurper  had  learnt  from 
the  exhibitions  of  the  Thespian  stage. 
Works.  7.  The  collective  works  of  Solon  comprise,  in  the 

schod  of  summary  of  the  popular  grammarians  ^,  Laws,  Ora- 
poctry.  tions,  Kcflexions  or  Commentaries  on  his  own  affairs, 
Elegies,  the  Salaminian  ode,  Reflexions  or  Commen- 
taries on  the  Athenian  state  in  five  thousand  verses, 
Iambic  pieces,  and  Epodes.  The  Orations  comprised 
in  the  above  list,  if  assumed  to  be,  in  the  stricter 
sense  of  the  term,  specimens  of  prose  oratory,  were 
probably  spurious,  as  are  doubtless  the  epistolary 
compositions  given  by  Diogenes  as  extracts  from  the 
philosopher's  private  correspondence.  The  poetical 
works  forming  the  remainder  of  the  catalogue  appear 
from  the  above  description,  as  well  as  from  the  por- 
tions of  them  still  extant,  to  have  been  almost  ex- 
clusively of  the  ethic  or  didactic  order.  Solon  is,  in 
fact,  the  earliest  known  author  who  can  properly  be 
classed  under  the  title  of  "  gnomic  "  poet.  The  term 
Gnomic  appears  to  have  been  originally  invented,  as 
it  was  exclusively  employed,  to  denote  a  school  of 
elegiac  poetry,  the  object  of  Avhich  was  to  incul- 
cate moral  doctrines  rather  than  express  mental 
emotions ;  to  enforce  maxims  of  worldly  wisdom,  in 
their  more  immediate  bearings  on  objects  of  special 
interest  to  the  author  or  his  public.  The  charac- 
teristic, consequently,  of  the  "  gnomic "  style  was  a 
sententious  gravity,  savouring  often  more  of  philo- 

1  Plut.  ill  vlt.  XXIX. ;  conf.  Sol.  frg.  28.  Bergk,  where  Solon  himself 
admits  the  falsehood  of  this  latter  class  of  mythical  authorities. 

2  Diosr.  ill  vit.  60.  ^  Dio"^.  iu  vit.  62 


Cu.  VI.  §7.  SOLON.       634— 554  B.C.  361 

sopliy  than  poetry.  It  is  true  that,  by  reference  to 
this  definition,  portions  of  the  works  of  various  pre- 
ceding poets,  of  Archilochus  for  example  or  Tyrtsi^us, 

miofht  rank  as  e^nomic.     There  is  however  this  dis- 
ci o 

tinction  between  the  cases,  that,  in  tlie  poems  of 
those  authors,  the  purely  ethic  or  didactic  element  is 
not  only  comparatively  limited,  but  altogether  subor- 
dinate to  the  general  scope  and  tendency  of  their 
muse ;  in  Tyrta^us,  to  martial  and  political  enthu- 
siasm ;  in  Archilochus,  to  satire  and  sarcasm.  The 
elegies  of  Solon,  Xenophanes,  Theognis,  on  the  other 
hand,  are  for  the  most  part  essentially  of  the  gnomic 
order,  while  all  may  be  said  to  partake  more  or  less 
of  the  same  character. 

The  spread  of  this  style  of  composition  in  the  age 
of  Solon,  connects  itself  with  the  rise  of  what  may 
also  be  called  the  gnomic  School  of  philosophy ;  if  it 
be  permitted  to  apply  so  dignified  a  title  to  so  pri- 
mitive a  fraternity,  whose  doctrines  consisted  chiefly 
of  desultory  maxims  or  moral  precepts  in  prose  and 
verse.  The  more  remarkable  members  of  this  school 
are  familiarly  known  by  the  title  of  the  "  Seven 
Sages."  Among  these  Solon  himself  was  the  most 
distinguished;  the  others  were  in  great  part,  like 
himself,  persons  versed  in  the  business  of  public 
life ;  several  of  them,  also  like  him,  political  leaders. 
This  school  therefore,  as  comprising  Thales,  the 
earliest  professional  mathematician  of  whom  Greece 
can  boast,  might,  in.  contradistinction  to  the  mys- 
tical or  cabalistic  school  represented  by  Epimenides 
and  Pythagoras,  claim  with  some  propriety  the  title 
of  first  practical  school  of  Greek  philosophy.  Amid 
the  still  slender  popularity  of  prose  composition,  the 
masters   of  the  latter  school  were  naturally  led,  in 


362 


BIOGRAPHY    OF    LYRIC   TOETS. 


Book  III. 


Critical 
estimate 
of  Solon's 


order  to  secure  attention  or  permanence  to  their  doc- 
trines, to  embody  them  in  a  poetical,  chiefly  an  elegiac 
form. 

8.  It  results  in  some  desrree  from  what  has  been 

O 

said,  that  while  there  is  no  style  of  Greek  poetry 
genius  and    more  closclv  conuccted  than  the  o-nomic  with  the  in- 

works.  *'  .  .  ... 

terests  of  real  life,  there  is  none  which,  if  it  does  not 
altogether  exclude,  so  little  implies  or  requires  in  its 
cultivators,  any  fervid  glow  of  poetical  inspiration  or 
lively  play  of  fancy.  Nor  can  Solon  be  said  to  form 
an  exception  to  this  rule.  It  would  indeed  be  doing 
him  injustice,  to  deny  that  he  was  a  poet  by  nature 
as  well  as  by  art  or  study  ;  and  had  his  lot  been  cast  in 
other  times,  in  another  station  of  life,  or  under  other 
circumstances,  the  power  of  native  inspiration  might 
have  shown  itself  more  extensively  and  under  more 
genial  forms  in  his  productions.  In  his  Salaminian 
ode  ^  accordingly,  dictated  as  it  was  by  a  powerful  im- 
pulse of  patriotic  enthusiasm,  his  elegiac  style  appears, 
even  from  the  few  preserved  lines,  to  have  risen  much 
above  its  usual  height,  towards  the  level  of  Tyrtasus 
or  Simonides.  His  other  compositions  also  contain 
some  spirited  and  original  passages.  But,  as  a  gene- 
ral rule,  the  poet  is  absorbed  in  the  philosopher  and 
statesman ;  and  the  intrinsic  value  of  his  collective 
works  consists  rather  in  their  intellectual  than  in 
their  imaginative  attributes;  in  just  and  striking  sen- 
timents, correctness  of  expression  and  versification ; 
in  the  qualities  proper  as  much  perhaps,  or  more,  to 
elegant  prose  than  to  genial  poetry.  It  may  also  be 
owing  to  the  comparatively  limited  range  afforded  by 
-    the  gnomic  style  to  individuality  of  poetical  character, 


^  Frg.  XVI. 


Ch.  VI.  §8.  SOLON.       634— 554  B.C.  363 

that  so  frequent  a  correspondence,  or  even  sameness, 
is  observable  in  passages  of  Solon,  Mimnermus,  The- 
ognis,  and  other  poets  of  the  same  order ;  and  hence 
that  the  texts  belonging  to  these  different  poets,  have 
been  so  frequently  confounded  with  each  other  in 
their  citation  by  the  antient  commentators.  There 
can  be  little  doubt,  as  has  been  observed  in  a 
former  page,  that  there  existed,  from  the  days  of 
Callinus  and  Tyrta3us  downwards,  in  the  elegiac 
school  of  composition,  especially  in  its  gnomic  element, 
as  in  the  old  epic  minstrelsy,  a  certain  ingredient 
of  poetical  commonplace,  extending  from  individual 
phrases  and  expressions  even  to  entire  sentences, 
and  to  the  doctrines  or  illustrations  which  they  em- 
body.^ 

It  seems  doubtful  whether  any  poem  of  Solon  has 
been  transmitted  entire,  with  the  exception,  it  may  be, 
of  the  short  elegy  descriptive  of  the  septennial  periods 
of  human  life  ^ ;  but  several  of  the  longer  extant 
passages,  as  illustrative  of  the  genius  of  their  author, 
possess,  in  their  existing  integrity  of  subject  and 
style,  a  value  equal  or  little  inferior  to  that  of 
entire  compositions.  The  whole  number  of  extant 
verses  is  about  two  hundred  and  seventy-five.  Of 
these  upwards  of  two  hundred  are  in  elegiac  measure; 
between  thirty  and  forty  are  iambic  trimeters.  Of 
the  remainder,  sixteen  are  trochaic  tetrameters ;  five 
alone  are  in  purely  melic  style.  The  two  hexameter 
verses  which  make  up  the  sum  total  of  the  collection 

^  Conf.  Bergk,  Poett.  lyrr.  nott.  ad  Mimnerm.  frgg.  v.  vii.,  nott.  ad 
Solon,  frg.  XII.  65.  sqq.  71.  sqq.,  frgg.  xv.  xvi. ;  Bach  ad  Calliii.  frg.  i. 
15.,  ad  Tyrtasum,  frg.  vi.  8.  29.  31.,  ad  frg.  viii.  1.  sqq.  27.  39.  alibi. 

^  The  arguments  urged  by  Person  against  the  genuine  character  of 
this  elegy  have  been  well  met  by  Bach,  p.  14.  sqq. 


364  BIOGRAPUY    OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  III. 

are  of  questionable  authenticity.  They  are  cited  by 
Plutarch  in  reference  to  a  tradition  of  which  he  him- 
self appears  to  make  but  little  account,  that  Solon 
had  originally  intended  to  draw  up  his  code  in  a  me- 
trical form  ;  and  of  this  legislative  poem  thej'^  profess 
to  be  the  exordium.^ 

The  longest  passage  of  the  collection  ^,  comprising 
seventy-six  elegiac  verses  in  essentially  gnomic  style, 
may  be  considered  as  a  fair  and  favourable  sample  of 
the  general  character  of  Solon's  poetry.  It  contains 
a  summary  of  his  views  relative  to  the  tenor  of  his 
life  and  conduct,  forming  evidently  a  portion  of  his 
"  Reflexions  on  his  own  aflfairs."  The  doctrines  in- 
culcated are  sound,  often  original  and  striking  ;  are 
expressed  with  a  vigour  and  terseness  sometimes  bor- 
dering on  abruptness,  and  are  illustrated  by  some 
spirited  imagery.  He  comments,  in  equally  emphatic 
but  less  querulous  terms  than  Mimnermus,  on  the 
ephemeral  nature  of  human  enjoyments  ;  dwells  on 
the  blessings  of  a  clear  conscience  and  a  contented 
mind;  condemning  the  insatiable  thirst  of  mortals  for 
the  possession  of  a  happiness  beyond  their  reach,  and 
their  wayward  caprice  in  its  pursuit.  Riches  ac- 
quired with  the  favour  of  the  gods  are  pronounced  a 
blessing,  but  ill-gotten  wealth  a  curse,  to  the  possessor. 
The  whole  is  pervaded  by  a  deep  tone  of  religious 
feeling,  by  an  humble  sense  of  the  dependance  of 
earthly  destiny  on  the  divine  will,  and  by  a  pious 
recognition  of  the  often  slow,  but  always  sure  course 
of  heaven's  retributive  justice.  His  description  of 
Ate,  as  the  figurative  personification  of  the  penal  or 
vindictive  agency  of  divine  retribution,  is  borrowed 

1  Plut.  in  vit.  111.  -  Frg.  v. 


Ch.  VI.  §8.  SOLON.       G34— 554  B.C.  365 

from  Homer  \  and  various  other  passages  show  his 
familiarity  with  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey,  and  the  influ- 
ence of  Homer's  philosophy  on  his  own  theory  of 
moral  sentiments. 

Another  bulky  text,  or  series  of  texts  ^,  of  a  more 
strictly  political  tendency,  composed,  it  would  appear, 
about  or  shortly  prior  to  the  epoch  of  his  legislative 
undertaking,  describes,  in  the  same  elegiac  measure, 
and  in  equally  spirited  language,  the  evils  which  led  his 
fellow-countrymen  to  resort  to  his  healing  interposi- 
tion. He  dwells  on  "  the  usurpations  and  impieties  of 
"  the  rich  and  noble,  the  cruel  oppression  and  degra- 
"  dation  of  the  poor,  and  the  consequent  wretched 
"  state  of  the  whole  community.  But  he  expresses  a 
"  firm  reliance  on  the  power  and  will  of  the  protect- 
"  ing  deities  of  the  republic  to  put  an  end  to  these 
"  calamities,  Avere  the  citizens  but  willing  to  cooperate 
"  in  providing  the  only  sure  remedy,  orderly  govern- 
*'  ment  and  equitable  laws."  Several  of  these  pas- 
sages offer  a  near  resemblance  to  parallel  portions 
of  the  Eunomia  of  Tyrta^us,  on  Avhich  work  this 
entire  composition  of  Solon  appears  to  have  been 
modelled. 

Of  the  Salaminian  ode,  the  most  remarkable  of  all 
Solon's  productions,  but  eight  elegiac  verses  are 
extant,  in  a  spirited  vein  of  patriotic  enthusiasm.  He 
protests,  "  that  he  would  rather  be  a  denizen  of  the 
"  most  contemptible  community  in  Greece  than  a  citi- 
"  zen  of  Athens,  to  be  pointed  at  as  one  of  those  Attic 
"  dastards  who  had  so  basely  relinquished  their  right 
"  to  Salamis."  In  several  of  the  shorter  pieces  allu- 
sion  is  made   to  the   less   prosperous  events  of  his 

1  Frg.  V.  13.  sqq.,  75.  sqq. ;  conf.  II.  ix.  505.,  xix.  92. 


366  BIOGRAPHY    OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  III. 

political  career,  to  the  intrigues  and  usurpation  of 
Pisistratus,  and  to  the  servile  submission  of  his  fellow- 
citizens  to  the  despotic  sway.  The  following  lines 
are  a  fair  specimen  of  his  mode  of  availing  himself  of 
the  popular  vein  of  poetical  imagery,  in  giving  effect 
to  his  ethic  commentaries : 

sx  V:(i)i7<rig  ^ipsrai  yjcivog  (xivog  r^ctk  p/ct^va^v^j, 

^povTY]  3'  sx  T^ajXTT^Sig  ylyvsrai  aa-rs^oTrr^c. 
l^  (xvB[xa)V  OS  $aKaar(ra  Tapa.(r(T£rai '  r)v  o=  rig  a'jTrjV 

[XYj   XIJ/^,    TTaVTCOy   IcTTi   ZiyiaiOTOLTTi. 

avb^Cov  0   EX  ^zycO^uiV  TroXig  o70^urai '  s]g  os  [xovdoyou 
^rifxog  oi'icpig  ecov  3oL»Xo(ruvryV  STreas 

s]  o\  TriTrovSoLTs  8s/va  §t'  ufJLSTepriv  xaxorr^TOLj 
[XYj  Ti  bzoig  ro'jTcov  [xrlioav  s7ra[x^if>zTS' 

avTo)  yap  rouroug  r/j^riCrocTzj  pxjrria.  oovrsg, 

xai  6ia  rauToi.  xaxr^v  scrvBTS  Soi/XocrtjvTjv.    .    .    . 

As  wintry  skies  bring  storms  of  sleet  and  hail ; 

As  from  the  lurid  cloud  forked  lightnings  play ; 
As  the  sea  rages  when  rude  winds  assail, 

Though  calm  by  nature  on  a  tranquil  day ; 
So  man's  ambition  with  destructive  feud 

This  state  hath  torn,  its  equal  laws  o'erthrown, 
And  driven  at  last  the  brainless  multitude 

To  fly  for  refuge  to  the  tyrant's  throne.  .  .  . 
And  will  ye  now,  by  stern  oppression  tried. 

The  gods  as  partners  of  your  guilt  invoke? 
Ye,  who  yourselves  the  despot's  rod  supplied, 

And  bowed  your  backs  submissive  to  his  stroke.'  .... 


In  other  passages  ^  he  dwells  with  honest  pride  on 
the  purity  of  his  public  conduct ;  on  the  value  of  the 
institutions  bestowed  by  him  on  a  country  so  little 
able  to  appreciate  them ;  on  his  own  disinterested 
patriotism   in    abstaining   from   grasping  or   perma- 


1 


Ch.  VI.  §9.  SOLON.       G34— 55-4  B.C.  367 

nently  wielding  the  royal  sceptre  which  his  fellow- 
citizens  had  placed  within  his  reach  ;  and  on  their 
ungenerous  requital  of  his  public-spirited  conduct.^ 
There  are  also  various  sonnets  or  epigrams  addressed 
to  friends,  in  familiar  epistolary  form.  In  one  he 
takes  leave  of  the  Cyprian  prince  by  whom  he  had 
been  hospitably  entertained  on  his  travels.^  A 
second^  is  to  his  own  nephew  Critias,  ancestor  of 
another  Critias  illustrious  as  a  favourite  disciple  of 
Socrates,  infamous  from  having,  in  his  capacity  of  one 
of  the  worst  and  cruelest  of  the  "  Thirty  tyrants," 
taken  part  in  the  persecution  of  his  old  friend  and 
master.  A  third,  addressed  to  Mimnermus,  has  al- 
ready been  noticed.  The  single  short  fragment 
of  the  melic  order,  inculcates  caution  against  a  too 
ready  confidence  in  professing  friends  or  favourable 
appearances.  It  has  been  supposed,  perhaps  with 
reason,  to  have  been  part  of  a  scolion  or  convivial 
catch.  The  measure  is  the  Stesichorean  mixture  of 
dactyl  and  trochee ;  the  language  in  a  strain  of 
florid  and  somewhat  far-fetched  imagery.  Solon's 
poetical  dialect  is  the  same  elegant  modification  of 
the  old  Homeric,  common  to  the  Ionian  elegiac  poets 
of  the  previous  generation.  His  poems,  those  it  may 
be  presumed  of  the  more  strictly  national  or  patriotic 
order,  were  recited  in  Plato's  time  by  the  Athenian 
youth  on  public  or  festive  occasions.^ 

9.  Plato,  in  his  usual  indirect  mode,  by  the  mouth  poem  and 
of  his  fellow-disciple  Critias,  partly  in  the  dialogue  ^^?f"*!.f 
which  takes  its  title  from  the  same  Critias,  partly  in 

^  Frgg.  XIX.  XXVI.  ^  Frg.  xxiii.  ^  Frg.  xxxii. 

^  Plato,  Tim.  p.  21.  Of  Solon's  epodes  no  trace  remains ;  nor  perhaps 
is  the  authority  of  Diogenes,  by  whom  alone  they  are  mentioned,  a 
sufficient  guarantee  of  their  genuine  character. 


368  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  III. 

the  preceding  dialogue  of  Timseus,  describes  Solon  as 
having,  in  the  latter  years  of  his  life,  undertaken  the 
composition  of  a  great  epic  poem  entitled  the  "  At- 
lantis," recording,  in  elaborate  detail,  the  glories  of 
Athens  in  the  age  prior  to  the  flood  of  Deucalion.  The 
completion  of  the  work,  it  is  further  stated,  was  pre- 
vented by  the  death  of  the  author.  The  whole  account 
of  this  poem,  of  its  supposed  contents,  and  of  the  cir- 
cumstances which  led  to  its  composition,  is  so  strange 
and  problematical,  as  to  have  given  rise  to  much  spe- 
culation among  commentators,  both  as  to  the  actual 
existence  of  any  such  poem,  and  as  to  the  degree  in 
which  Plato  himself  on  the  one  hand,  or  his  spokes- 
man Critias  on  the  other,  is  to  be  held  responsible  for 
the  authenticity  of  the  notices  concerning  it.  For 
the  better  understanding  of  the  whole  bearings  of  the 
question,  it  will  be  proper  to  subjoin  an  abstract  of 
the  legend  of  the  Atlantis,  as  embodied  in  the  two 
treatises  above  referred  to  :  ' 

Solon,  when  in  Egypt,  visited,  among  other  remarkable  places, 
the  city  of  Sais,  the  seat  of  the  chief  sanctuary  of  the  goddess  Neit, 
whom  the  Athenians  called  Athena.  The  priests  of  the  temple, 
in  conversation  with  their  guest,  proudly  contrasted  the  antiquity 
and  permanence  of  Egyptian  civilisation  with  the  recency  and  in- 
stability of  that  of  Greece  ;  boasting  that  they  possessed  the  records 
of  human  affairs  extending  in  regular  succession  over  a  period  of 
nine  thousand  years,  and  amongst  other  chronicles,  those  of  the  an- 
tient  republic  of  Athens  as  it  existed  before  the  flood  of  Deucalion. 
From  this  disaster  Egypt  had  been  preserved  by  the  favour  of  its 
climate,  where  rain  is  unknown.  At  each  successive  return  of 
such  calamitous  inundations,  described  by  the  same  authorities  as 
taking  place  periodically^  the  civilised  communities  of  other  parts 
of  the  earth,  with  their  written  registers^  are  swept  away.  The 
barbarous  mountaineers  alone  survive,  who  are  thus,  when  the 
waters  subside,  under  the  necessity  of  commencing  the  process 
of  improvement  anew  upon  the  plains.     In  Egypt  alone  the  race 

1  Critias,  p.  108.  sqq. ;  Tinijeus,  p.  20.  sqq. 


Ch.  VI.  §  9.  SOLON.       G34— 554  R.  C.  3G1) 

of  men  with  the  succession  of  chronicles,  is  carried  on  in  uninter- 
rupted order. 

The  primeval  Athens,  both  as  to  its  city  and  its  territory,  was 
far  superior  in  extent  to  the  existing  republic.  The  city  was  also 
much  stronger,  the  soil  more  fertile,  than  in  the  postdiluvian 
period.  The  earth  w^as  in  those  days  divided  into  two  great 
political  systems  or  confederacies,  one  of  Avhich  comprised  all 
Asia,  with  the  eastern  regions  of  Europe  and  Libya.  Of  this 
confederacy,  Athens  was  the  state  most  distinguished  fur  tlie  ex- 
cellence of  its  institutions,  and  for  the  talents  and  bravery  of  its 
citizens.  It  was  also  the  most  antient  seat  of  the  goddess  Athena, 
and  preferred  by  that  deity  to  all  other  regions.  Fi'ora  this  her 
original  sanctuary  the  worship  of  Pallas  had  been  carried  over  to 
Sais,  where  it  was  preserved  during  the  deluge,  and  reimported 
into  Athens  when  the  city  was  rebuilt  after  that  catastrophe.  The 
other  division  of  the  then  habitable  world  formed  one  vast  empire, 
the  metropolis  of  Avhich  was  in  a  great  island  called  Atlantis,  in 
the  Western  Ocean,  beyond  the  Pillars  of  Hercules ;  an  island  sur- 
passing in  extent  the  whole  eastern  portion  of  the  earth  above 
described,  and  inhabited  by  a  race  infinite  in  numbers,  and  spread- 
ing over  the  adjacent  continent  of  Libya  as  far  as  Egypt,  and  of 
Europe  as  far  as  the  Adriatic.  In  their  earlier  and  better  daj^s 
the  Atlantides  fell  little  short  of  their  Attic  rivals  in  the  virtues 
of  the  warrior  and  citizen.  But  in  course  of  time,  Avealth  and 
luxury  generated  ambition  and  pride ;  and,  under  the  influence 
of  these  fatal  passions,  they  undertook  a  mighty  expedition  for 
the  conquest  of  the  rival  confederacy.  Such  was  the  terror  in- 
spired by  their  power  and  resources,  that  all  the  eastern  states, 
with  the  single  exception  of  Attica,  shrunk  from  the  contest. 
The  Athenians  alone,  partially  supported  by  their  Hellenic  kins- 
men, stood  forward  in  the  common  defence,  and,  after  enduring 
numberless  hardships,  succeeded  in  totally  defeating  their  over- 
bearing enemy.  Before  however  they  had  time  to  follow  up  their 
victory,  or  restore  order  to  the  distracted  aifairs  of  their  own  con- 
federac)^,  the  great  flood  of  Deucalion  supervened,  by  wliich  the 
island  and  race  of  Atlantis  were  swept  off  the  face  of  the  globe, 
and  the  Greeks  themselves  were  exterminated,  wuth  the  exception 
of  a  few  pastor  tribes  on  the  loftiest  mountain  regions,  ancestors  of 
the  subsequent  race  of  Hellenes. 

Such  were  the  materials  of  the  great  epopee  de- 

VOL.  III.  B  B 


and  import. 


370  BIOGRAPHY    OF   LYRIC    POETS.  Book  in- 

scribed by  Critias  the  ostensible  narrator  of  the 
tradition,  on  the  authority  of  his  grandfather  the 
friend  and  cousin  of  the  legislator,  as  having  been 
undertaken  by  Solon,  and  a  portion  of  which,  in  the 
manuscript  of  the  author,  the  same  Critias  asserted 
to  be  still  extant  in  his  own  possession. 
Its  origin  10.  It  ma}'' bc  presumed,  that  no  one  competently 

versed  in  the  comparative  m3^thology  of  the  two  na- 
tions can  believe,  that  any  such  legend  as  the  above 
was  ever  seriously  narrated  by  an  Egyptian  priest 
to  a  Greek  philosopher.  That  the  Egyptians,  whose 
great  boast  was  the  superior  antiquity  of  their  gods, 
their  race,  and  their  civilisation,  should,  under  the 
semblance  of  such  a  mere  shadow  of  this  proud 
privilege,  so  completely  abandon  its  substance,  is  in- 
credible. Little  more  likely  is  it,  even  had  they  been 
willing  to  relinquish  the  palm  of  antediluvian  splen- 
dour in  favour  of  any  other  race,  that  they  would 
have  handed  it  over  to  one  whose  existence  was 
scarcely  known  to  them  a  century  before  Solon's 
time,  to  one  whom  they  still  considered  as  but  a 
petty  mushroom  tribe  of  barbarians,  inhabiting  a 
distant  barren  rock  on  the  rugged  shores  of  the  north, 
and  acknowledging  themselves  indebted  to  Egypt 
herself  for  whatever  advance  they  had  been  able  to 
make  in  the  arts  of  civilised  life.  Above  all  incredible 
is  it,  that  Egyptian  antiquaries  would  have  repre- 
sented their  own  country,  under  her  antient  glorious 
dynasty  of  gods  or  heroes,  as  skulking  from  a  contest 
with  an  enemy  whom  a  neighbour  and  ally  boldly 
engaged  and  defeated  single-handed  ;  and  as  indebted 
for  her  own  preservation  to  the  valour  of  that  neigh- 
bour whom  she  had  so  basely  deserted  in  the  hour 
of  need.     Nor  is  there  a  whisper  of  any  tradition 


Ch.  VI.  §10.  SOLON.       G34-554B.  C.  371 

remotely  resembling   the  Atlantis  in  the  more    au- 
thentic standards  of  Egyptian  mythology.     The  le- 
gend, even  in  its  geographical  and  maritime  details, 
clearly   betrays    a    Hellenic,    or    rather    perhaps    a 
Graeco-Phoenician  origin.     It  appears,  indeed,  to  con- 
nect itself  very   palpably   with   the    Homeric   fable 
concerning  Calypso,  the  daughter  of  Atlas,  and  her 
island   in    the    far   west.     The   name   of  this   fairy 
"  Atlantid  "   goddess,   signifying  literally  "  hidden," 
"  covered  over,"  bears  a  palpable   reference    to    the 
mysterious  disappearance  of  the  Atlantid  island  in 
the  legend ;  and  the  other  Homeric  and  Hesiodic  tra- 
dition of  the  Elysian  plains,  or  Islands  of  the  Blessed, 
in  the  same  western  ocean,  is  probably  but  a  variety 
of  the  same  fable.     The  Egyptians  may  possibly,  in 
the  time  of  Solon,  have  had  some  knowledge  of  this 
chapter  of  Greek  mythology,  and  may  have  alluded 
to  it  in  their  conversations  with  the  philosopher;  but 
that  they  should  ever  have  embodied  it  in  the  form  of 
the  Platonic  Atlantis  cannot  for  a  moment  be  admitted. 
Two  other  explanations  present  themselves  :  first, 
that  Solon,  either  with  or  without  a  hint  on  the  part 
of  his  rej^uted  Egyptian  authorities,  had  really  pro- 
posed Avorking  up  the  Atlantid  legend  of  the  Homeric 
age  into  an  elaborate  epic  poem  of  the  didactic  order, 
and  that  his  unfulfilled  idea  had  been  taken  up  by 
Plato.     The   other    alternative    would    be,    that  the 
whole  narrative,  both  as  regards  the  composition  of 
the  poem  and  the   conversation   of  Solon  with   the 
priests,  is  a  mere  invention  of  Plato  ^,  who  avails  him- 

^  It  seems  strange  that  so  intelligent  a  critic  as  Bach  (Sol.  Carm. 
p.  48.  sq.)  should  have  allowed  his  judgement  on  this  point  to  be  influ- 
enced by  a  fastidious  tenderness  for  Plato's  character  for  truthfulness. 
He  indignantly  pronounces  that  philosopher  incapable  of  such  "  impudent 

B  B    2 


372  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYKIC   TOETS.  Book  III. 

self  of  Solon  and  the  Saitic  hierarchy,  as  he  does  else- 
where of  his  own  contemporaries,  as  organs  for  incul- 
cating his  philosophical  doctrines,  through  one  of  those 
brilliant  allegories  in  which  he  so  greatly  delighted. 
Its  purely  11.  The  latter  view  is  in  every  respect  the  more 
characte?.  probablc.  The  whole  narrative,  while  repugnant  to 
all  that  is  known  of  the  genius  of  Solon,  bears  broadly 
the  stamp  of  that  of  Plato.  Even  were  it  necessary  to 
recoiinise  in  that  narrative  a  small  basis  of  oriojinal 
matter  derived  from  Solon  or  from  Egypt,  the  style 
of  the  superstructure  sufficiently  vouches  for  an  iden- 
tity between  the  hand  which  reared  and  that  which 
describes  the  entire  fabric.  The  obviously  allegorical 
tendency  of  the  fiction  supplies  in  itself  conclusive 
argument  in  favour  of  this  opinion.  The  symbolic 
mode  of  conveying  instruction  was  as  foreign  to  the 
taste  of  Solon  as  congenial  to  that  of  Plato.  Nowhere 
is  there  any  appearance  of  an  approach  to  that  mode  on 
the  part  of  the  former  ;  no  trace  even  of  one  of  those 

mendacity"  as  would  be  implied  by  any  such  explanation  of  the  Atlantid 
story  as  that  proposed  in  the  text.  It  is  to  be  feared  that  this  mode  of 
vindicating  Plato's  veracity  would  be  subversive  of  all  hitherto  received 
rules  of  Platonic  criticism.  We  should,  upon  this  new  principle,  be  bound 
to  believe  that  Critias,  Timteus,  Socrates,  and  all  the  other  companions  of 
the  philosopher,  actually  uttered  to  the  letter,  and  in  good  faith  and  sober 
earnest,  all  the  statements  or  opinions  which  Plato  puts  into  their  mouths. 
It  would  be  necessary  to  believe,  for  example,  not  only  that  Socrates,  in  a 
conversation  with  his  pupils,  had  really  promulgated  the  Ansionaty  theory 
of  a  Republic  which  Plato  attributes  to  him,  but  that  the  constitution  of 
that  republic  also  turned  out,  as  Critias  says,  "  by  a  miraculous  coinci- 
dence," to  be  an  exact  counterpart  of  that  which  the  Egyptian  priests 
had  described  to  Solon  as  really  existing  in  an  antediluvian  Athens  ! 
Even  Professor  Bach  will  hardly  carry  his  advocacy  of  the  philosopher's 
veracity  to  this  extremity.  If,  however,  Plato  be  admitted  to  be  men- 
dacious to  the  extent  of  putting  into  the  mouths  of  his  own  friends  and 
contemporaries  words  or  doctrines  which  they  never  uttered,  his  honour 
will  not  be  greatly  tarnished  by  his  being  assumed  to  have  taken  the  same 
liberty  with  Solon  and  the  priests  of  Sais. 


I 


Cu.VI.  §11.  SOLON.       G34— 554B.C.  6i6 

familiar  fables  or  parables  with  which  his  lyric  con- 
temporaries were  used  to  season  tlieir  didactic  muse. 
The  authentic  notices  of  his  life  and  conversation,  of 
his  interview  with  Croesus  for  example,  exhibit  him 
studious  in  all  cases  of  the  simplest  and  most  direct 
methods  of  appealing  to  the  judgement  or  the  sympa- 
thies of  mankind.     But,  if  the  merely  allegorical  cha- 
racter of  the  legend  forms  in  itself  an  obstacle  to  a 
literal  construction  of  the  narrative  of  Critias,  still 
strono;er  is  the  ar2;ument  derived  from  the  nature  of 
the  allegory  employed.     What   more   palpable  than 
that  the  object  of  that  allegory  is  to  illustrate,  in  the 
case  of  the  antediluvian  Athenians,  the  value  of  re- 
publican purity  of  manners,  with  its  attendant  virtues, 
courage  and  patriotism  ;  in  that  of  the  Atlantidte,  the 
corrupting  influence  of  wealth  and  luxury,  even  on  a 
race  endowed  by  nature  with  excellent  gifts  ?     The 
sequel  of  the  joint  history  of  the  two  nations  further 
exemplifies   the  worthlessness,    in  warfare,  of  mere 
numbers  and  resources  against  valour  and  conduct ; 
and  the  ability  even  of  so  poor  a  country  as  Attica, 
defended  by  a  hardy  population,  to  bafiie  the  ill-di- 
rected energies  of  a  mighty   empire.     That  such  a 
figure  should  have  suggested  itself  to  the  Egyptian 
priesthood  seems  incredible,  on  grounds  already  sta- 
ted.    Little  more  likely  was  it  to  have  occurred  to 
Solon,  even  had  he  been  partial  to  the  allegorical  style 
of  illustration.  Such  lessons  of  figurative  morality  can 
seldom,  if  ever,  suggest  themselves  to  an  orator,  still  loss 
be  relished  by  an  audience,  apart  from  a  certain  bearing 
on  the  events  and  interests  of  their  own  times.     But 
there  was  nothing  whatever  in  the  age  of  Solon  to 
impart  either  point  or  interest  to  the  moral  of  the  At- 
lantic tale.      There  was  much,  on  the  other  liand,  nay. 


374  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  m. 

every  tiling,  in  the  age  of  Plato.     The  fabulous  At- 
lantid  war  is,  in  all  its  essential  features,  a  type  of 
that  between  the  Persians  and  Hellenes,  in  the  gene- 
ration immediately  preceding   the   philosopher.     Of 
that  war  the  Athenians,  then  in  the  acme  of  their 
moral   and  political  vigour,  bore  the  brunt.     After 
having  been,  like  their  fabulous  antediluvian  ances- 
tors, abandoned  in  a  great  measure  by  the  neighbours 
who  possessed  a  common   interest   in   repelling   the 
invader,  and  after  having  been  also  like  those  ances- 
tors reduced  to  the  last  extremity,  they  became  both 
at  Salamis  and  Plata^a,   as  previously  at  Marathon, 
like  them  also  the  bulwark  of  Greece  against  the  hos- 
tile armament.  The  vicissitudes  of  the  Atlantid  power 
shadow  forth  in  a  similar  manner  those  of  the  Median 
empire  ;  an  empire  distinguished  under  the  primitive 
Persian  dynasty  by  its  military  and  political  virtues, 
but  rapidly  involved  in  defeat  and  humiliation,  when 
led  by  pride  and  confidence  in  its  overgrowth  to  seek 
still  further  aggrandisement  at  the  expense  of  another 
and  a  better  race  of  men. 

If  the  Atlantid  fable,  in  the  more  extended  form  in 
which  Plato  exhibits  it  in  the  "Tim8eus"and  "Critias," 
be  admitted  to  be  a  fiction  of  later  origin,  probably  of 
Plato  himself,  the  inference  must  be  fatal  to  the  belief 
of  an  Atlantid  poem  having  ever  been  projected  by 
Solon.  That  no  such  belief  existed  in  Athens  prior 
to  the  composition  of  these  two  dialogues  their  own 
contents  abundantly  prove.  Critias,  in  whose  mouth 
the  story  is  placed,  introduces  it  plainly  as  something 
new,  or  not  hitherto  familiar  to  Socrates  and  the  rest 
of  his  supposed  audience.^  This  Plato  could  not 
with  any  propriety  have  made  him  do,  had  there 
been  a  previously  current   rumour   on  the   subject. 

1  Tim.  p.  21. 


Cu.  VI.  §11.  SOLON.       G34— 554B.C.  375 

The  very  citation  by  Critias  ^  of  the  legislator's  ori- 
ginal manuscript  of  the  poem  as  still  in  his  OAvn  pos- 
session, is  subversive  of  all  literal  reality  in  his  narra- 
tive. Who  can  believe  that  such  a  precious  document 
would,  alone  among  the  acknowledged  remains  of  its 
supposed  author's  genius,  have  hitherto  lain,  un- 
known to  or  neglected  by  the  Athenian  public,  on  the 
shelves  of  a  private  library  ?  or  still  worse,  would 
even  after  this  open  announcement  of  its  existence, 
have  been  permitted  to  remain  and  perish  in  its  pre- 
vious obscurity  ?  The  motive  assigned  by  Critias, 
in  the  treatise  bearing  his  name,  for  introducing  the 
subject,  that  namely  of  illustrating  the  "  miraculous 
coincidence "  ^  which  he  had  observed  between  the 
theoretical  Republic  of  the  previous  Dialogue  and 
the  constitution  of  the  antediluvian  Athens,  must 
in  itself  be  conclusive  proof  in  every  reasonable 
quarter,  that  the  whole  story  is  but  a  grand  specimen 
of  Plato's  didactic  allegory.  The  introductory  re- 
marks of  Critias,  in  which  he  characterises  his  own 
narrative  as  "  sounding  indeed  strange,  or  even  ab- 
surd, but  as  nevertheless  quite  true,"  ^  is  itself  in  a 
tone  of  jocose  apology  for  the  extravagance  of  his 
fiction,  plainly  enough  implying  that  he  was  far  from 
expecting  that  any  portion  of  his  audience  would  be 
so  simple  as  to  suppose  he  was  relating  facts.  No 
less  conclusive  to  the  same  effect  are  the  pains  he 
takes  to  inform  his  audience  that,  at  the  time  when 
this  elaborate  poetico-political  romance  was  recited 
to  him  by  his  grandfather,  then  ninety  years  of 
age,  he  was    himself  but   ten   years  old  ;    and   yet, 

'   Crit.  p.  113  A.  ^   iai/xoylui  iic  Tiros  tuxIS.      Tiiu.  p.  25  E. 

^   Tim.  p.  20  I).      Ko-yov   fK  iraXaias  oikot;?  .  .  .  ;naAa  /.'.e^   &Towtji',   Trai/rdnctfri 
76  i-irji'  dA7)9f). 

15    I!    4 


o76  BIOGKAPHY    OF   LYRIC    POETS.  Book  HI. 

lie  adds,  every  syllable  of  the  old  man's  lecture, 
which,  if  ever  delivered,  must  have  been  unintel- 
ligible to  a  child  of  that  age,  had  made  such  an  in- 
delible im])ression  on  him,  as  to  justify  his  assuring 
Socrates,  and  the  company  whom  he  addressed,  that 
his  own  Atlantic  dissertation  was  in  all  essential  par- 
ticidars  a  faithful  representative  of  the  original  dis- 
course of  his  ancestor.^ 


THE   SEVEN   SAGES. 

Seven 

Sages.  ^2,  Among  the  contemporaries  of  Solon  distin- 
guished for  a  certain  proficiency  in  the  gnomic  style 
of  poetry,  the  more  remarkable,  as  already  observed, 
belonged  to  the  celebrated  fraternity  commonly  en- 
titled the  Seven  Sages,  of  which  fraternity  Solon 
himself  was  the  chief  ornament.  A  share  in  this 
honourable  title  was  claimed,  as  is  well  known,  by  a 
greater  number  of  sages  than  seven,  according  as 
one  might  be  omitted,  or  another  included,  in  the 
various  popular  catalogues.  It  happens  however, 
that  the  list  of  those  to  whom  the  honour  has  been 
awarded  on  the  best  authority,  comprises  the  names 
of  all  such  as  are  reported  to  have  cultivated  polite 
letters,  or  to  have  transmitted  specimens  of  poetical 
composition.  The  Seven,  as  thus  constituted,  are 
Solon,  Thales,  Pittacus,  Periander,  Cleobulus,  Chilo, 
and  Bias.^     As  these  remarkable  personages  are  all 

'  'J'iin.  p.  21  B. 

'■'  The  names,  as  will  be  seen  by  reference  to  the  dates  appended  to 
them  in  the  sequel,  have  here  been  arranged  with  reference  rather  k> 
the  celebi-ity  of  the  men,  than  to  the  strict  chronological  order  of  their 


Cii.  VI.  §  12.  THE   SEVEN    SAGES.  377 

more  celebrated  in  their  capacity  of  philosophers  or 
statesmen  ^  than  in  that  of  poets,  and  as  the  remains 
of  their  reputed  compositions  are  but  scanty,  or  of 
doubtful  authenticity,  their  names  may  scarcely  seem 
entitled  to  a  place  in  this  department  of  literary 
history.  In  addition,  however,  to  the  claims  founded 
on  their  own  poetical  performances,  the  circumstance 
that  all  or  most  of  them  exercised  a  certain  in- 
fluence on  the  general  progress  of  literature  in 
their  day  would,  in  itself,  here  entitle  their  lives 
and  labours  to  a  reasonable  share  of  notice.  The 
only  case  which  will  be  excepted  is  that  of  Thales, 
whose  connexion  with  elegant  literature  is  so  doubt- 
ful or  so  slight,  and  his  distinction  as  a  philosopher, 
or  even  as  the  patriarch  and  fountain-head  of  Greek 
physical  science,  so  great,  as  to  bring  his  life  and 
influence  exclusively  within  the  limits  of  the  purely 
scientific  department  of  Hellenic  culture. 

The  next  three  in  the  list,  Pittacus,  Periander, 
and  Cleobulus,  combined  with  their  character  of 
sages  or  poets  that  of  distinguished  political  chiefs. 


lives.  Plato  (Protag.  p.  343.)  gives  the  following  list:  Thales,  Pittacus, 
Bias,  Solon,  Cleobulus,  Myson,  Chilon.  Mysoii  is  also  admitted  by  Eu- 
doxus  (ap.  Diog.  in  vit.  Thai.),  in  preference  to  Cleobulus.  Periander, 
excluded  by  Plato,  is  admitted  by  Aristotle  (ap.  Diog.  Laert.  in  vit.  Per. 
99.),  by  Plutarch  (Conv.  Sept.  Sap.),  by  Clemens  Alexand.  (Strom,  i. 
p.  299.),  and  by  Diogenes  Laertius  (in  vita).  Some  restricted  the  seven 
to  five  (Plut.  de  EI,  p.  385.)  ;  others  even  to  four,  viz.  Thales,  Bias, 
Pittacus,  and  Solon  (Dica;arch.  ap.  Diog.  in  vit.  Thai.  41.)  ;  others  ad- 
mitted an  indefinite  number  (Diog.  loc.  cit. ;  conf.  Prooem.  13. ;  Clint. 
Fast.  I-Iell.  ad  an.  586-). 

'  It  may  be  remarked,  as  a  curious  instance  of  discrepancy  between  very 
high  authorities,  on  a  matter  of  apparent  notoriety,  that  Plato  (Hipp.  maj. 
p.  281.)  asserts  very  distinctly  that  tl'.e  Seven  Sages  did  not  meddle  with 
politics.  Cicero,  on  the  otlier  hand  (De  Hep.  i.  7.),  assorts  no  less  posi- 
tively that  tiiey  did;  and  Cicero  certainly  is  right. 


378  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  III. 

PITTACUSi    (615— 569  B.  C), 

Pittacus.  Son  of  Hyrrliadius  of  Mitylene,  was  an  early  con- 
temporary of  Solon,  his  death  having  taken  place  in 
the  Liiird.  Olympiad  (569  b.  c),  at  the  age  of  upwards 
of  seventy,  and  about  ten  years  prior  to  the  death  of 
the  Attic  legislator.-  He  was,  in  all  respects,  one  of 
the  most  admirable  characters  of  his  ao-e,  devotino; 
his  whole  time  and  talents,  which  seem  to  have  been 
of  a  high  order,  to  the  service  of  his  country  and 
his  fellow-citizens.  During  the  earlier  part  of  his  life 
he  was  engaged  in  resisting  the  alternate  attempts 
of  the  extreme  aristocratical  and  extreme  popular 
factions  to  subvert  the  liberties  of  his  native  com- 
munity. After  many  hard  struggles,  ending  in  the 
defeat  and  banishment  of  his  leading  opponents,  he 
was,  as  the  only  apparent  guarantee  of  the  perma- 
nence of  that  good  government  which  he  had  for  the 
present  secured,  himself  elected  dictator  by  the 
unanimous  suffrages  of  his  better-disposed  fellow- 
citizens.^  At  the  close  of  a  ten  years'  unblemished 
exercise  of  his  trust,  during  which,  by  a  new  code 
of  laws,  and  by  a  general  course  of  wise  administra- 
tion, he  had  placed  the  republican  institutions  of  the 
state  on  a  safe  footing,  he  voluntarily  abdicated  his 
power,  and  passed  the  remainder  of  his  life  in  retire- 
ment. His  celebrated  saying,  "  How  hard  a  thing  it 
"  is  to  be  a  truly  honest  man !  "  honoured  with  copious 
commentaries  by    Simonides   and   Plato  ^    has  been 

^  Conf.  DIog.  Laert.  in  vit. ;  supra,  Ch.  v.  p.  258.  sqq. ;  Plehn,  Les- 
biaca,  p.  87.  sqq. ;  Welck.  Alcaeus,  Klein.  Schr.  vol.  i.  p.  126. 

^  Diog.  Laei't.  in  vit.  79. ;  Suid.  v.  niTraKSs  ;  conf.  Clint.  Fast.  Hell, 
vol.  I.  p.  237. 

3  Aristot.  Polit.  iii.  10.;  conf.  ii.  10. ;  Strab.  xiir.  p.  617. ;  Diog.  Laert. 
in  vit.  74.  sqq. ;  Plut.  Amat.  p.  763. 

■1  Bergk,  Fragm.  Simon.  8. ;  Plat.  Protag.  p.  3-31).  in[i{.,  conf.  De  Legg. 
p.  979. 


Ch.  VI.  §  12.  PITTACUS.       645—569  B.  C  379 

supposed,  with  reason,  to  refer  to  the  temptations  to 
which  his  monarchal  sway  exposed  his  virtue  ;  tempt- 
ations the  power  of  which  was  similarly  felt  and  re- 
sisted by  his  Athenian  fellow- sage. 

No    less   honourable   to   his    character    than    the 

patriotic  zeal  with  which  he  pursued  the  enemies  of 

public  tranquillity,  was  his  generous  treatment  of  them 

when  reduced  to  submission.     An    example  of  this 

generosity  has  above  been  cited  in  his  conduct  towards 

the  poet  Alcaeus.     Xor  was  he  less  distinguished  as  a 

warrior  than  as  a  statesman  ;  and  the  device  by  which, 

in  a  great  battle  between  the  jMitylena^ans  and  the  rival 

Attic  colonists  of  Sigeiim,  he  slew,  in  single  combat, 

the  hostile  commander,  by  casting  a  net  over  him  in 

the  moment  of  collision,  is  celebrated  in  the  annals  of 

military  stratagem.^     If  the  satirical  muse  of  Alceeus 

may  be  trusted,  Pittacus  was  less  fitted  to  adorn  the 

throne  to  which  his  countrymen  raised  him,  by  his 

courtly  manners,   or   the   agreeable  qualities  of  his 

person,  than  by  the  virtues  of  his  mind.     Neither  the 

scoffing  allusions  of  the  satirical  poet  to  his  slovenly 

attire  and  the  lowness  of  his  social  habits,  nor  the 

epithets  of  boaster,    splay-foot,    and    others    equally 

coarse,  with  which  Alcceus  assailed  him^,  ought  indeed, 

as  proceeding  from  an  embittered  political  opponent,  to 

be  taken  by  the  letter.     Yet  a  certain  rustic  simplicity 

of  manners  seems  to  transpire  in  the  accounts  of  the 

domestic  unhappiness  occasioned  him  by  the  pride 

and  violent  temper  of  his  wife  ^,  a  lady  of  noble  rank, 

with   whom  he   had  been   imprudently   induced   to 

1  Plut.  de  Herod.  Malig.  p.  858.;  Strab.  xiii.  p.  600.;  PolyEcn,  Strateg. 
I.  xxi.  ;  Diog.  in  vit.  Pitt.  74. 

2  Diog.  Laert.  op.  cit.  8].;   Alca^i  Fragm.  30.  Schneidewiii ;   Plut. 
Symposiac.  viii.  p.  726. 

*  DioK.  in  vit.  81. 


380  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

form  an  alliance.  Hyrrhadius,  the  father  of  Pittacus, 
is  said  to  have  been  a  Thracian  by  birth  \  naturalised 
in  Mitylene  by  marriage  with  the  daughter  of  a 
Lesbian  citizen.  Pittacus  was  thus,  by  the  mother's 
side,  entitled  to  the  full  rights  of  citizenship  in  his 
native  republic.  His  foreign  blood  however,  his  early 
and  steady  opposition  to  the  aristocratical  party  in 
the  state,  and  the  epithet  of  "  base-born  "  applied  to 
him  by  Alcteus,  render  it  probable  that  he  belonged 
originally  to  the  lower  order  of  Mitylenaean  free- 
men. His  wife,  on  the  other  hand,  is  described  as 
daughter  of  a  noble  citizen  named  Penthilus,  and  Avas 
hence  probably  of  the  old  royal  blood  of  Mitylene,  in 
which  that  name  was  hereditary.  Her  own  man- 
ners would  seem,  in  spite  of  her  noble  lineage,  to 
have  partaken,  if  Pfutarch^  may  be  trusted,  but  little 
of  the  proverbial  refinement  of  Lesbian  social  life. 
That  author  describes  her  on  one  occasion,  when  her 
husband  was  entertaining  a  select  circle  of  friends,  as 
entering  the  room  in  a  passion  and  upsetting  the 
table  and  its  equipage,  to  the  great  astonishment  and 
consternation  of  the  party. 

The  only  extant  specimen  of  the  muse  of  Pittacus 
is  a  stanza  of  one  of  those  short  convivial  ditties 
embodying  popular  ethic  maxims,  and  habitually 
sung  by  the  guests  on  handing  round  the  cup.  It 
inculcates  the  necessity  of  being  on  our  guard  against 
fair  words  proceeding  from  a  foul  tongue.^  Pittacus 
is  said  to  have  left  six  hundred  elegiac  verses,  of  the 
same  gnomic  character  as  the  parallel  compositions 
of  Solon,  and  certain  legislative  writings  in  prose  *  ; 
but  no  remains  of  these  works  have  been  preserved. 

'  Diog.  Laert.  in  vlt.  74. ;  Suid.  v.  YlirraKos. 

-  ])e  Anim.  Tran<[.  '*  Diog.  in  vit.  78.  '*  Diog.  in  vit.  79. 


Ch.  VI.  §13.  PERIANDER.       065-585  B.  C.  381 

The  maxims  of  moral  wisdom  attributed  to  him  by 
his  biographers  ilhistrate,  in  a  very  happy  manner, 
the  more  amiable  features  of  his  character  and  con- 
duct. He  pronounced  "  the  greatest  blessing  which 
"  a  man  can  enjoy  to  be  the  power  of  doing  good  :  " 
that  "  the  most  sagacious  man  was  he  who  foresaw 
"  the  approach  of  misfortune ;  the  bravest  man,  he 
"  who  knew  how  to  bear  it : "  that  "  victory  should 
"  never  be  stained  by  blood :  "  and  that  "  pardon  was 
"  often  a  more  effectual  check  on  crime  than  punish- 
"ment."i 


13.  PERIANDER  (665—585  B.C.), 

"  Tyrant  "  of  Corinth,  if  less  worthy  of  admiration  Periander. 
in  his  moral  and  pohtical  relations  than  Pittacus, 
is  more  celebrated  as  a  promoter  of  elegant  litera- 
ture. Although  branded  by  the  popular  stigma  as 
one  of  the  most  iniquitous  of  those  usurpers  of  re- 
publican rights  who,  about  this  time,  arose  in  many 
of  the  Greek  states,  he  is  perhaps  the  one  whose 
adherents  had  most  to  offer  in  palliation,  or  even  in 
justification,  of  his  offence.  His  authority,  such  as 
it  was,  had  descended  to  him  by  hereditary  title,  and 
the  rule  of  his  father  Cypselus  had,  in  the  first  in- 
stance, been  established  by  the  suppression  of  an  oli- 
garchy, which,  while  equally  an  encroachment  on  old 
constitutional  privilege,  had  proved  far  less  conducive 
to  the  prosperity  of  the  state  than  the  single  domi- 
nion of  the  Cypselidae.  The  dictatorship  of  Cypselus 
seems  indeed,  like  that  of  Pittacus,  to  have  been 
voluntarily  conferred  on  him  by  the  citizens  as  a 
remedy  for  democratic   or   oligarchal  tyranny,   and 

'  Dior?,  iu  vit. 


382  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  III. 

like  that  of  the  Lesbian  patriot  was  mildly  exercised, 
though  not  so  generously  laid  down. 

The  sway  of  Feriander,  on  the  other  hand,  though 
prudent  and  political,  appears,  whether  from  natural 
temperament,  from  fear  of  the  constitutional  party 
which  he  had  to  keep  down,  or  from  the  evil  example 
of  other  petty  despots,  the  daughter  of  one  of  whom 
he  had  married,  to  have  been  really  despotic  and 
severe,  though  not  certainly  to  the  extravagant  ex- 
cess described  in  the  popular  accounts.  His  more 
arbitrary  measures,  as  being  chiefly  directed  against 
the  pretensions  of  the  upper  class,  seem  also,  as 
frequently  happens  in  similar  cases,  to  have  been 
but  little  obnoxious  to  the  strictly  democratic  order 
of  citizens.  An  illustration  of  this  Macchiavellian 
line  of  policy,  and  of  the  wary  caution  with  which 
it  was  exercised,  occurs  in  the  well-known  anec- 
dote of  the  advice  tendered  by  him  to  his  fellow- 
tyrant,  Thrasybulus  of  Miletus.^  Thrasybulus  had 
written  to  ask  his  counsel  as  to  the  best  mode  of 
securing  permanence  to  his  own  despotic  government. 
Periander  returned  no  answer  in  writing,  but  desired 
the  messenger  to  follow  him  into  a  corn-field,  where 
he  occupied  himself  for  some  time  with  his  staff,  in 
whipping  off  the  ears  from  the  tallest  stalks  of  corn. 
He  then  bade  the  messenger  return,  and  report  to 
his  employer  how  he  had  been  received  at  Corinth. 
This  anecdote  is  more  familiar,  probably,  to  most 
readers,  in  the  shape  in  which  it  has  been  transferred, 

1  Aristot.  Polit.  in.  ix.  ("^'iii.)?  v.  I.  Herodotus  (v.  xcii.  6.)  reverses 
the  case,  ascribing  to  Periander  the  application  for  advice,  and  to  Thra- 
sybulus the  allegorical  reply.  The  authority  of  Aristotle  is,  however, 
to  be  preferred,  as  the  nai'rative  of  Herodotus  is  here  tinged  throughout 
by  a  spirit  of  fable,  if  not  of  pi'ejudice. 


Ch.  VI.  §  13.  PERIANDER.      6G5-585B.C.  383 

like  so  many  others,  from  the  early  history  of  Greece 
to  the  political  mythology  of  Rome,  where  Tarquin 
and  his  poppy-heads  take  the  place  of  Periander  and 
his  ears  of  corn.  There  is,  however,  no  trace  of  the 
policy  inculcated  in  the  allegory  having  ever  been 
carried  by  Periander  himself  to  any  cruel  excess,  or 
beyond  the  mere  humiliation  of  the  more  powerful 
Corinthian  nobles.  Amono^  all  the  extravao^ant  ac- 
counts  of  his  other  imputed  enormities,  there  is  no 
notice  of  any  leading  Corinthian  citizen  having  been 
put  to  death  by  him.  Had  such  acts  of  bloodshed 
been  on  record,  Aristotle  would  never  have  limited 
his  notice  of  the  tyrant's  treatment  of  those  citizens 
to  his  repression  of  the  undue  magnificence  of  their 
establishments,  or  to  a  prohibition  of  their  residing 
within  the  walls  of  the  city.^ 

Nor,  probably,  were  these  more  defective  points  of 
his  character  without  a  beneficial  influence  on  the 
progress  of  those  elegant  pursuits  of  which  he  was  so 
munificent  a  patron,  with  the  view,  among  other  mo- 
tives, as  Aristotle-  remarks,  of  diverting  the  attention 
of  his  subjects  from  the  affairs  of  government.  It 
seems  indeed  certain,  that  the  establishment  of  the 
so-called  "  tyrannies  "  in  many  of  the  principal  Greek 
states  about  this  time,  in  Corinth,  Sicyon,  Miletus, 
Epidaurus,  Lindus,  Megara,  and,  at  a  somewhat  later 
epoch,  in  Athens  and  Samos,  not  only  coincided  with, 
but  contributed  to,  a  rapid  advancement  of  science  and 

'  Arlstot.  Polit.  V.  xi. 

2  Apud  Diog.  Laert.  98. ;  conf.  Ileracl.  Polit.  v.  Scbneid.  ad  loc. 
The  character  of  Periander,  it  may  be  remarked,  appears,  in  the  sketches 
given  of  it  by  Aristotle,  under  features  very  different  from  those  under 
which  it  has  been  represented  in  the  evidently  overdrawn  portrait  of  it 
by  Herodotus.  But  of  this  more  hereafter,  in  the  chapter  devoted  to 
Herodotus  himself  and  his  authority  as  a  historian. 


384  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  ITI. 

letters.  All  or  most  of  these  petty  despots  appear 
to  have  combined  a  taste  for  such  pursuits  with  the 
ample  means  for  its  gratification  which  their  usurped 
power,  and  its  for  the  most  part  arbitrary  exercise, 
placed  at  their  disposal.  Their  influence  and  habits 
had  also  a  tendency  to  break  up  the  more  fastidious 
individuality  of  local  Greek  character.  A  freer  course 
was  opened  to  the  traffic  of  social  and  civilised  life  in 
the  different  states  of  Hellas,  both  with  each  other 
and  with  the  great  neighbouring  monarchies.  It 
was  the  obvious  interest  of  the  Greek  political  usur- 
pers to  maintain  friendly  relations,  not  only  among 
themselves,  but  with  foreign  powe;rs  ;  and  the  result 
was  a  more  extended  cultivation  of  those  branches  of 
elegant  art  and  science  in  which  the  Oriental  nations 
were  still  in  advance  of  the  Greeks.  Special  notice 
occurs  of  such  confidential  intercourse  carried  on  by 
Periander  with  Alyattes  king  of  Lydia,  and  with  his 
own  fellow-tyrants  of  Miletus,  Epidaurus,  and  Ar- 
cadia.^ His  munificent  encourao-emeut  of  foreis-n 
artists  has  already  been  illustrated  in  the  life  of  the 
Lesbian  Arion,  by  whom,  under  Periander's  imme- 
diate patronage,  the  most  brilliant  order  of  Greek 
lyric  ceremonial,  parent  of  the  Attic  drama,  was  ma- 
tured and  carried  to  perfection. 

The  reign  of  Periander  lasted  upwards  of  forty 
years.^  He  died  in  the  first  year  of  the  XLixth 
Olympiad  (b.  c.  585).  The  epoch  of  his  birth  is 
not  recorded,  but  he  is  said  to  have  reached  the 
age  of  eighty.  The  works  assigned  him,  besides 
some  evidently  spurious  epistles,  were  two  thousand 


^  Diog.  in  vlt.  95.;  conf.  Miillei",  Dor.  vol.  i.  p.  167.  (i.  vlii.) 

-  Aristot.  Polit.  v.  xii. ;  Diog.  98. ;  conf.  Clint.  F.  H.  vol.  i.  p.  230.  214. 


Cii.  VI.  §  14.         PERIANDER.       665— 585  B.  C.  385 

verses  of  "  commentaries,"  ^  moral  and  political,  si- 
milar to  those  which  occupied  the  leisure  of  Soloji, 
and  of  other  poets  of  the  same  practical  turn  of  genius. 
Of  these  compositions,  admitting  their  genuine  clia- 
racter,  no  remains  have  heen  preserved. 

14.  Of  the  personal  character  of  the  Corinthian  His  per- 
tyrant  it  is  difficult  to  form  any  just  estimate  from  racten^" 
the  conflicting  accounts  promulgated  in  later  times. 
Had  he  not  enjoyed  an  extraordinary  credit  in  his 
own  day  for  equity  and  judgement,  where  his  indi- 
vidual passions  or  interests  did  not  interfere,  he 
would  hardly  have  been  numbered,  and  that  on  the 
high  authority  of  Aristotle,  among  the  Seven  Wise 
Men.  Still  more  conclusive  in  favour  of  his  real 
claim  to  the  virtues  of  integrity  and  impartiality  at 
least,  is  the  fact,  transmitted  on  testimony  beyond 
the  reach  of  all  suspicion,  that  he  was  chosen  as 
arbiter  to  settle  the  terms  of  peace  between  the  re- 
publics of  Athens  and  Mitylene,  and  that,  by  his 
award,  the  virulent  warfare  in  which  the  two  states 
had  so  long  been  engaged  was  brought  to  a  close. ^ 
It  may  safely  be  asserted,  not  only  that  two  powerful 
independant  communities  would  never  have  mutually 
agreed  to  select,  for  so  momentous  and  delicate  a  duty, 
any  man  who  was  open  to  the  charge  of  unprincipled 
conduct  or  profligate  habits,  but  that  they  never 
would  have  selected  for  such  a  duty  any  one  who 
was  not  preeminent  among  his  contemporaries  for 
qualities  of  an  opposite  description.  Yet  the  same 
Herodotus  who  records  this  fact,  followed  by  other 
authorities  of  inferior  note,  gives  Periander  credit 
for  acts  of  wanton  injustice  and  savage   brutality, 

^    inroOiJKai.      Diog.  97. 

-  Herodot.  v.  xcv. ;  Aristot.  .^hot.  i.  xvi.  (xv.)  ;  Strab.  xiv.  p.  600. 
VOL.  III.  C    C 


386  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

disgraceful  to  tlie  character,  not  merely  of  sage,  but 
of  human  being. ^  The  very  extravagance  of  many 
of  these  stories,  and  the  contradictory  mode  in  which 
they  are  narrated  in  different  quarters,  go  far  indeed 
to  stamp  them  as  exaggerations  or  calumnies,  re- 
flecting the  natural  bitterness  of  spirit  with  which 
the  Greeks,  in  the  subsequent  more  prosperous  ages 
of  republican  liberty,  looked  back  on  the  class  of 
rulers  to  which  Periander  belonged. 

According  to  these  accounts,  he  lived,  in  early 
youth,  in  incest  with  his  mother  ^ ;  and  in  later 
life  killed  his  wife  Melissa^,  as  some  reported,  by 
kicking  her  on  the  body  when  pregnant ;  in  other 
accounts,  he  beat  out  her  brains  with  a  footstool. 
To  this  outrage  he  is  said  to  have  been  instigated  by 
the  slanderous  insinuations  of  some  of  his  own  concu- 
bines, whom,  when  afterwards  convicted  of  falsehood, 
he  burnt  alive.'*  Herodotus  describes  his  treatment 
of  Melissa's  body  after  death  as  still  more  monstrous 
than  his  mode  of  despatching  her.^  The  same  histo- 
rian states,  that  in  order  to  do  honour  to  her  memory, 
he  invited  the  most  distinguished  ladies  of  Corinth 
to  a  solemn  festival ;  and,  assembling  them  in  the 
sanctuary  of  Juno,    stripped   them  of  their  holiday 

1  Conf.  note  2.  to  p.  383. 

^  Parthenius,  in  his  romance,  exculpates  him  from  wilful  guilt  in 
respect  to  this  crime,  by  making  him  the  unconscious  victim  of  his 
mother's  unnatural  passion.  (Amat.  Affect,  xvn.)  Plutarch  (Conv.  S. 
Sap.  p.  146  D.)  and  other  authors  seem  to  acquiesce  in  this  account. 
(Arlstipp.  ap.  Diog.  Laert.  96.) 

^  Herod,  in.  1.  Her  original  name  is  said  to  have  been  Lyside  ;  that 
of  Melissa,  or  "  The  Bee,"  was  a  term  of  endearment  conferred  on  her 
by  her  husband,  in  recognition,  it  may  be  presumed,  either  of  the  sweet- 
ness of  her  temper,  or  of  her  industry  and  exemplary  habits,  to  which  all 
authorities  bear  testimony.     Diog.  vit.  Per.  94. ;  conf.  Athen.  xiii.  .589. 

**  Diosr.  94.  ^  V.  xcii.  7. 


Ch.  VI.  §14.         PERIANDER.       665— 585  B.  C  387 

dresses  and  jewels,  which  he  offered  as  a  burnt  sacri- 
fice to  the  manes  of  Melissa.^  Ephorus,  on  the  other 
hand,  described  the  same  outrage  as  having  been  perpe- 
trated, not  for  the  purpose  of  this  pious  holocaust,  but 
for  that  of  converting  the  plundered  gold  ornaments 
into  a  statue  which  the  tyrant  had  vowed  to  Jupiter.^ 
The  most  marvellous  story  of  all  is  the  stratagem 
by  which  he  secured  concealment  for  the  place  of  his 
interment.  He  is  said  to  have  ordered  two  of  his 
trusty  attendants  to  proceed  after  dusk  along  the 
road  leading  from  the  gate  of  the  city  into  the 
country;  to  kill  the  first  man  they  met,  and  bury  his 
body  secretly  by  the  way  side  ;  to  treat  the  second 
and  third  in  the  same  manner ;  and  so  on  up  to  a 
certain  number.  One  of  the  first  victims  was  the 
author  of  the  scheme.  So  absurdly  incredible  a  tale 
sufiices  in  itself  to  create  reasonable  doubts  as  to  the 
existence  of  any  broader  basis  of  fact  even  in  the 
other  less  wildly  improbable  traditions  of  the  same 
stamp.  Whatever  his  own  personal  habits  may  have 
been,  authorities  are  agreed  as  to  the  fact  of  his  having 
proved  a  rigid  enforcer  of  law  and  civil  discipline 
among  the  citizens  over  whom  he  held  sway^  ;  and,  if 
the  flourishing  condition  of  a  country  may  be  taken  as 
any  just  test  of  the  wisdom  and  good  government  of 
its  ruler,  Periander,  judged  by  this  standard,  would  be 
entitled  to  the  highest  rank  among  early  Greek  states- 
men and  legislators.  Corinth,  under  his  sway,  was 
not  only  one  of  the  most  powerful,  but  apparently 
by  far  the  wealthiest,    most  industrious,    and   most 


'  Herodot.  loc.  cit.  ;  conf.  Ephor.  ap.  Diog.  96. 

-  Diog.  96. ;  conf.  Herod.  lu.  xlviii. ;  Diog.  95. ;  Plut.  dc  ]\IaI.  Herod, 
p.  859. 

^  Heracl.  Polit.  v. ;  couf.  Schneldewin  ad  loc. ;  Athcu.  x.  p.  443. 

c  c   2 


388  BIOGRAPHY    OF    LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

commercial  community  of  European  Greece.^  The 
city  possessed  harbours  on  each  side  of  the  Isthmus; 
and  the  customs  and  port  dues  are  said  to  have  suf- 
ficed to  defray  the  whole  expenditure  both  of  the  so- 
vereign and  the  state,  Avithout  direct  taxation  of  any 
kind.  Corcyra  belonged  to  him ;  and  the  flourish- 
ing colonies  of  Apollonia,  Anactoria,  and  others  in 
Acarnania  and  on  the  neighbouring  coasts,  are  de- 
scribed as  established  or  extended  by  Periander.^ 

Numerous  moral  apophthegms  are  recorded  of  him 
in  his  character  of  Sage ;  some  of  which  are  cu- 
riously at  variance  with  the  darker  shades  of  his 
popular  portrait.  He  pronounced  it  to  be  "  the  duty 
"  of  a  wise  governor  to  prevent,  rather  than  punish, 
"  crime  ;  that  democracy  was  a  preferable  form  of 
"  government  to  monarchy ;  and  that  the  best  per- 
"  sonal  security  of  a  sovereign  was,  not  a  body-guard, 
"  but  the  affections  of  his  citizens."  When  asked : 
Why  then  maintain  his  own  "  tyranny  ?  "  he  replied  : 
"  Because  to  abdicate  would  be  equivalent  to  an  act 
"  of  self-destruction."  This  latter  doctrine  is  illus- 
trated by  that  which  Plutarch  ^  places  in  the  mouth 
of  Solon.  That  legislator,  when  prompted  by  his 
friends  to  usurp  permanently  the  supreme  power, 
replied  that  "  Tyranny  might  be  a  fair  country,  but 
that  there  was  no  way  out  of  it."  In  other  pithy 
maxims  Periander  inculcated  probity,  moderation, 
circumspection,  and  condemned  avarice,  treachery, 
and  incontinence. 


^  Herod,  m.  52. ;  Heracl.  Polit.  v. ;  conf.  Schneidewin,  ad  loc. ;  Suid. 
VV.  TlepicwSpos  et  Kx/\p€\iSQ}v  ava9r]/j.a. 

^  Plut.  de  Ser.  Num.  vind.  p.  552. :  conf.  Thuc.  i.  26. 
^  In  vit.  Sol.  XIV. 


Ch.  VI.  §  15.  CLEOBULUS.       58G  B.C.  389 

15.  CLEOBULUS  (586  B.  C.),' 

Son  of  Evagoras,  was  "  tyrant  "  of  Lindus,  in  the  isle  cieouuius. 
of  Rhodes  ^,  and  was,  like  Periander,  denied  by  some 
authorities  any  just  right  to  a  place  in  the  list  of 
Sages,  as  having  been  indebted  for  that  honour  not  so 
much  to  his  own  merits  as  to  the  fears  or  flattery  of  his 
subjects.^  This  imputation  however  is  here  the  less 
plausible,  that,  while  the  Corinthian  sage  really  en- 
joyed celebrity  as  a  powerful  and  oppressive  monarchy 
Cleobulus  is  indebted  for  the  few  notices  transmitted 
of  him  chiefly  to  his  reputation  for  wisdom.  In  his 
capacity  of  "  tyrant "  but  little  is  known  concerning 
him,  and  the  tenor  of  that  little  would  imply  that 
he  was  a  mild  and  beneficent  ruler.  His  principal 
extant  biographer  does  not  even  allude  to  his  sovereign 
power,  while  his  epitaph,  as  cited  by  the  same  autho- 
rity, dwells  on  the  aflection  entertained  for  him  by 
his  fellow-citizens.*  His  epoch  is  marked  merely  by 
the  facts  of  his  having  been  contemporary  with  his 
fellow-sages,  and  of  his  having  lived  upwards  of 
seventy  years.  He  was  distinguished  not  merely  for 
his  mental  qualities,  but  for  the  strength  and  beauty 
of  his  person.^  His  compositions  are  characterised  as 
songs  or  Ij^ric  pieces,  epigrams,  and  poetical  riddles  or 
charades,  extending  in  all  to  three  thousand  verses.^ 
The  collection  was,  for  the  most  part,  it  may  be  sup- 
posed, of  the  same  didactic  tendency  as  other  produc- 
tions of  the  early  gnomic  school.  The  few  lines  of 
the  purely  lyric  order  which  have  been  preserved^  are 

1  Clint.  F.  H.  ad  an.  586  b.c. 

^  Duris  (ap.  Diog.  in  vit.  Cleob.  init.)  called  him  a  Carian. 

3  Plut.  de  EI,  p.  385.  ^  Diog.  Laert.  in  vit.  93. 

^  Suid.  V.  KAeo'jSouAos ;  Diog.  in  vit.  89.  ^  Diug.  lot;,  cit. 

'  Ap.  Diog.  61. 

c  c  3 


390  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC    POETS.  Book  III. 

directed  against  ignorance  and  idle-speaking.  They 
are  in  enigmatical  style,  and  in  a  somewhat  indefinite 
species  of  iambic  or  trochaic  measure.  The  remains 
of  his  poetical  riddles  are  in  hexameters.  The  inscrip- 
tion on  the  tomb  of  Midas  ^,  which  superficial  critics 
ascribed  to  Homer,  was  not  only  quoted  as  a  work  of 
Cleobulus  by  his  younger  contemporary  Simonides, 
but  made,  as  such,  the  subject  of  a  somewhat  captious 
commentary  by  that  poet.  The  epitaph  itself  is  here 
subjoined : 

%<Tr   av  uOcop  rs  psyj  xa)  SivSpea  y.axpa.  raSrjXy]^ 
i]s'kiog  T   oLVicov  7^a[X7rYi  T^a^Trpa.  ts  G's7\.rjV7}, 
xa\  TToraixoi  ys  ^sio(riv  avaxXu^^t]  Ki  boCknuda-a^ 
auTov  r"fj3e  ixsvoiktu  TroXoxXaucrto  stt)  rujajSto, 
ayysT^sco  Trapiodci  M/^aj  on  r-^Ss  riSaTrroLi. 

A  maid  of  bronze  am  I,  and  here  will  stand 
On  Midas'  tomb,  as  long  as  on  the  strand 
The  sea  shall  beat ;  as  long  as  trees  shall  grow, 
Sun  rise,  moon  shine,  or  liquid  waters  flow  ; 
So  long  by  this  sad  tomb  I'll  watch,  and  cry, 
Midas  lies  here  !  to  every  passer  by. 

Simonides  ridicules  the  extravagance  of  the  asser- 
tion contained  in  these  lines,  that  the  bronze  figure 
on  the  monument  "  was  destined  to  endure  as  lona: 
as  the  terrestrial  globe  itself."  Taken  in  its  literal 
sense,  such  an  assertion  were  no  doubt  sufficiently 
inept.  That  Cleobulus  however,  meant  seriously  to 
maintain  any  such  extravagance  can  hardly  be  sup- 
posed. The  epigram  is  evidently  one  of  those  poetical 
conundrums  to  which  the  Lindian  sage  was  partial ; 
and  the  interpretation  of  which  would  require  an  in- 
sight into  the  circumstances  of  its  composition  which 

1  Ap.  Diog.  in  vit.  89.     It  is  also  cited  by  Plato. 


Ch.  VI.  §15.  CLEOBULUS.       586  B.C.  391 

does  not  seem  to  have  been  possessed  by  Simonides, 
and  can  hardly  therefore  be  within  the  reach  of  any 
modern  Oedipus.  Cleobulus  is  described  by  Colu- 
mella^ as  a  distinguished  promoter  of  agriculture. 
Among  other  pithy  maxims  of  moral  or  ethic  wisdom, 
be  taught  that  "  a  man  should  never  leave  his  dwell- 
"  ing  without  considering  well  what  he  was  about  to 
"  do,  or  reenter  it  without  reflecting  on  what  he  had 
"  done ;  "  and  that  "  it  was  folly  in  a  husband  either 
"  to  fondle  or  reprove  his  wife  in  company."  ^ 

The  reputation  of  Eumetis,  daughter  of  Cleobulus, 
sumaraed  after  himself  Cleobuline,  was  little  inferior 
to  that  of  her  father,  both  for  wisdom  and  virtue 
and  for  poetical  talent,  especially  in  the  composition 
of  metrical  enis^mas.  Amono-  the  riddles  ascribed  to 
her  was  that  very  elegant  one  on  the  subdivisions  of 
the  year^,  which  some  authorities  claimed  for  her 
father.  Another,  on  the  operation  of  cupping,  is 
praised  by  Aristotle  and  Plutarch.^ 

The  composition  of  such  epigrammatic  riddles  ap- 
pears to  have  been,  from  an  early  period,  a  favourite 
occupation  of  the  Greek  literary  ladies.  That  this 
exercise  of  intellectual  subtlety  was  not  untainted,  in 
later  times  at  least,  with  a  certain  affectation  or  pe- 
dantry, may  be  presumed  from  its  having  become  a 
popular  subject  of  satire  with  the  Attic  dramatists, 
in  comedies,  of  several  of  which  Cleobuline  was  the 
heroine.^  Sappho  was  also,  as  we  have  already  seen, 
lampooned  in  the  same  quarters  on  the  same  account ; 
though,  judging  from  her  extant  remains,  with  less 

1  Lib.  I.  c.  1.  ^  Diog.  in  vit.  92. 

^  Diog.  vit.  Cleob.  91.;  SuiJ.  v.  KXeogouXtVrj. 
*  Arist.  Rhct.  in.  ii. ;  Plut.  Conv.  Sept,  Sap.  p.  154. 
5  Meiueke,  Fragm.  Comm.  Gra^c.  vol.  i.  p.  277.,  n.  p.  67.  sqq.,  iv. 
p.  427.  sq(i. 

c  c  4 


392  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  III. 

reason  than  her  Lindian  fellow-poetess.  Cleobuline  is 
celebrated  for  the  primitive  simplicity  and  purity  of 
her  manners,  and  for  her  zealous  exercise  of  the 
rites  of  hospitality.^  Plutarch  calls  her  a  Corin- 
thian, possibly  from  her  having  married  and  settled 
in  Corinth. - 

16.  CIIILO   (596  B.  C.)' 

chiio.  Of  Lacedasmon,  son  of  Demarmenus,  was,  like  his 
Dorian  fellow-sages  of  Corinth  and  Lindus,  distin- 
guished in  the  political  as  well  as  the  scientific  world, 
having  filled  the  office  of  Ephorus  in  his  native  re- 
public."' Nor  was  he  altogether  unconnected  with 
royalty,  his  daughter  having  married  the  celebrated 
Spartan  king  Demaratus^,  who  betrayed  his  country 
to  the  Persian  monarch.  The  epoch  of  his  entry 
upon  office  is  placed  in  the  LVth  or  LVith  Olympiad, 
when  he  was  already  far  advanced  in  years.  Nearly 
half  a  century  prior  to  that  date  he  had  distinguished 
himself  as  an  expounder  of  the  divine  will,  while  sa- 
crificing at  Olympia  along  with  Hippocrates,  father 
of  the  usurper  Pisistratus,  by  interpreting  an  omen 
vouchsafed  on  that  occasion,  and  portending  the  dan- 
o-erous  character  of  his  fellow-worshipper's  future 
offspring.^  He  also,  in  a  spirit  of  political  foresight 
rather  than  of  religious  prophecy,  forewarned  his 
countrymen  of  the  danger  to  which,  in  their  foreign 
wars,  they  might  be  exposed  from  the  vicinity  of  the 
isle  of  Cythera  to  their  coast.^ 

'  Clem.  Alex.  Str.  iv.  p.  523.  ;  Plut.  Conv.  Sept.  Sap.  p.  148. 

2  Loco.  citt.  ;  conf.  De  Pyth.  Orac.  p.  401. 

3  Conf.  Clin.  F.  H.  ad  an.  596.  586. 

"  Aristot.  Rhet.  ii.  xxiv. ;  Diog.  in  vit.  Chil.  68. 

^  Herod.  VI.  Ixv,  ®  Herod,  i.  lix. ;  conf.  Diog.  loc.  cit. 

'•  Herod,  vii.  ccxxxv. 


Cu.  VI.  §1G.  BIAS.      585— 540  B.C.  393 

His  most  celebrated  maxim  was  that  inculcating 
moderation  :  [xrjoh  dyav,  "  nothing  in  excess."  When 
asked  what  were  the  three  most  difficult  things  in  a 
man's  life,  he  replied :  "  To  keep  a  secret,  to  forgive 
*'  injuries,  and  to  make  a  profitable  use  of  leisure 
"  time."i 

His  death  is  said  to  have  taken  place  at  Olympia, 
from  the  combined  effects  of  old  age  and  of  joy,  when 
embracing  a  son  who  had  been  declared  victor  in 
the  games.^  The  single  extant  remnant  of  his  lyric 
composition  ^,  comprising  six  lines  in  Stesichorean 
measure,  and  marked  by  elegance  both  of  expres- 
sion and  sentiment,  inculcates  that,  "  as  the  purity  of 
"  gold  is  proved  by  the  touchstone,  so  gold  itself  is  the 
"  test  by  which  the  good  or  evil  in  human  character 
"  is  brought  to  light."  Of  his  two  hundred  elegiac 
verses,  also  mentioned  by  his  biographers  \  no  re- 
mains have  been  preserved. 

BIAS  (585-540  B.  C.),^ 

Son  of  Teutamus,  of  Priene  in  Ionia,  is  celebrated  Bias, 
exclusively  as  Sage.  While  his  character  receives 
neither  lustre  nor  tarnish  from  political  rank  or  power, 
he  has  not  only  the  honour  of  belonging  to  the  select 
four  ^  whose  claim  to  be  numbered  among  the  Seven 
was  undisputed,  but  seems,  in  regard  to  the  strictly 
ethic  or  moral  attributes  of  his  order,  to  have  en- 
joyed the  highest  reputation  of  the  whole  frater- 
nity.'    Though  not  a  professional  statesman,  he  was 

^  Diog.  in  vit.  69.  ;  conf.  Gell.  i.  iii. 

2  Diog.  in  vit.  72. ;  Plin.  H.  N.  vii.  32.  (54.).  ^  Dj^g,  yj^ 

*  Diog.  iu  vit.  init.  *  Clint,  ad  an.  586  n.c.  569  b.c. 

<=  Diog.  Laert.  in  vit.  Thai.  41. 

'  Satyr,  ap.  Diog.  in  vit.  Biantis,  82.  ;  Ilcracl.  ap.  Diog.  88. 


394  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  IH. 

enabled  by  his  natural  penetration,  in  several  emer- 
gencies, to  render  important  public  services  to  his 
countrymen. 

Tiie  date  of  his  birth  has  not  been  recorded.  He 
survived  however  all  his  fellow-sages,  Solon  by 
nearly  twenty  years,  being  still  alive  at  the  epoch 
of  the  conquest  of  his  native  Ionia  by  the  Persians 
(540  B.C.).  He  seems  consequently  to  have  been 
the  youngest  of  the  Seven.  In  the  Panionian  as- 
sembly of  the  confederate  states,  held  in  reference  to 
the  national  calamity  above  mentioned,  he  was  the 
author  of  a  suggestion  greatly  commended  by  He- 
rodotus.^ He  proposed  to  his  fellow-countrymen 
that  they  should  emigrate  in  a  body  to  the  island  of 
Sardinia,  and  there  found  a  single  commonwealth,  as 
the  only  means  of  insuring  the  joint  blessings  of  con- 
stitutional liberty,  unity  among  themselves,  and  se- 
curity against  foreign  aggression. 

The  practical  benefit  of  his  sententious  wisdom  was 
also  exemplified  ^  in  the  argument  by  which,  when  a 
guest  of  Croesus  king  of  Lydia,  he  dissuaded  that 
ambitious  monarch  from  a  project  equally  pregnant 
with  mischief  to  Lydians  and  Hellenes.  Croesus, 
sovereign  of  a  great  inland  monarchy,  was,  about  the 
period  of  the  philosopher's  visit,  fitting  out  a  fleet  for 
the  reduction  of  the  Greek  insular  republics  on  the 
Asiatic  coast.  On  his  inquiring  of  his  guest  what 
news  he  brought  from  Ionia,  the  philosopher  an- 
swered, that  the  islanders  were  preparing  a  great 
force  of  cavalry,  with  the  intention  of  marching  upon 
Sardis.  At  this  intelligence  the  king  expressed  great 
delight,  in  the  prospect  of  an  easy  victory  over  such 
inexperienced  horsemen.     "  And  do  you  not  think," 

^  III.  clxx.  ^  Herod,  i.  xxvii. 


Ch.  VI.  §  IG.  BIAS.      685— 540  B.C.  395 

rejoined  Bias,  "that  the  Ionian  mariners  look  forward 
"  with  equal  satisfaction  to  their  victory  over  your 
"  navy  of  Lydian  landsmen  ?  "  ^ 

Bias  was  distinguished  for  his  talent  of  foren- 
sic pleading  ^,  and  is  celebrated  on  this  account  by 
bis  younger  contemporary,  the  poet  Hipponax.  His 
death  is  said  to  have  taken  place  in  court,  while 
resting  his  head  on  the  bosom  of  a  young  grandson 
after  a  powerful  address,  at  the  moment  when  the 
decision  was  pronouncing  in  favour  of  his  client.^ 
His  fellow-citizens,  in  testimony  of  their  esteem, 
decreed  him  a  sumptuous  funeral  and  monument  at 
the  public  expense.^ 

The  poetical  works  attributed  to  Bias  were  two 
thousand  lines  upon  the  means  of  restoring  prosperity 
to  the  Ionian  republics.'''  The  single  existing  rem- 
nant of  his  muse  consists  of  a  convivial  stanza  of 
three  verses,  inculcating  the  wisdom  of  adapting  our 
habits  to  those  of  the  place  or  people  among  whom  it 
is  our  lot  to  reside.  Of  his  sententious  prose  lessons 
the  following  are  specimens  ^ :  "  The  most  unfor- 
"  tunate  of  all  men  he  pronounced  to  be  the  man  who 
"  knows  not  how  to  bear  misfortune :  "  that  "  it  was 
"  better  for  a  man  to  act  as  arbiter  in  a  dispute  be- 
"  tween  two  of  his  enemies  than  between  two  of  his 
"  friends ;  for  in  the  former  case  his  decision  would 
"  be  sure  to  gain  him  a  new  friend,  in  the  latter  to 
"  create  him  a  new  enemy :  "  that  "  a  man  should  be 
"  slow  in  making  up  his  mind,  but  swift  in  executing 
"  his  decisions." 

^  This  story  was  told  by  some  of  Pittacus  (Herod,  loc.  cit.).  But 
Pittacus  died  before  the  accession  of  Croesus  to  tlie  Lydian  throne. 

^  Strabo,  p.  63G. ;  Diog.  in  vit.  84.  ;  Hipponax  ap.  Diog.  et  Strab.  locc. 
citt. 

^  Diog.  loc.  cit.         "*  Diog.  85.         ^  Diog.  loc.  cit.         ^  Diog.  86.  sqq. 


396  BIOGRAPHY   OF   LYRIC   POETS.  Book  III. 

Another,  on  first  view  less  generous,  but  perhaps, 
if  riglitly  understood,  not  less  sound  and  valuable 
doctrine  inculcated  by  him  was,  "  that  a  man  should 
"  temper  his  love  for  his  friends  by  the  reflexion  that 
"  they  might  some  day  become  his  enemies,  and  mode- 
"  rate  his  hatred  of  his  enemies  by  the  reflexion  that 
"  they  might  some  day  become  his  friends."  ^ 

AVhen  overtaken  by  a  storm  on  a  voyage  with  a 
dissolute  crew,  and  overhearing  them  ofi'er  up  prayers 
for  their  safety,  he  advised  them  rather  "  to  be  silent, 
"  lest  the  gods  should  discover  that  they  were  at 
"sea." 

*  Aristot,  Rhet,  u.  xv.  xxii. ;  conf.  Cic.  de  Amic.  xvi. 


Cii.VIL  §1.        MONUMENTAL    IXSCRirXIONS.  397 


CHAP.  VII. 

EARLY   HISTORY   OP    WRITING   IN   GREECE. 

PART   I.      MONUMENTAL   INSCRIPTIONS. 

1.    INTRODUCTORY    REMARKS.        CADMEAN    TRADITION.        ITS    HISTORICAL    IM- 
PORT.  2.    RULES    FOR    THE    GUIDANCE     OF     MODERN    RESEARCH.       NU5IBEK 

AND    PECULIAR    CHARACTER    OP  THE    EARLY    GREEK    INSCRIBED    MONUMENTS. 

3.    CHANCES    OF    THEIR    PRESERVATION. 4.    COMPARATIVE    NEGLECT     OF 

BLACK-LETTER  PURSUIT  IN  GREECE.  SUPPOSED  LITERARY  FRAUDS.  RUDE- 
NESS   OF    THE     PRIMITIVE     ALPHABET. 5.    NOTICES    OF    EARLY    INSCRIBED 

MONUMENTS.       EPITAPHS.       LEGISLATIVE     TABLES. 6.    VOTIVE     MONUMENTS 

IN    THE     NATIONAL      SANCTUARIES.         PAUSANIAS.  7.    OLYMPIA.         DISK      OP 

IPHITUS.       "  TREASURIES."       CHEST    OP     CYPSELUS.  8.    OTHER     MONUMENTS 

AT  OLYMPIA  AND  ELSEWHERE. 9.  EARLY  GREEK  ARCHIVES. 10.  MONU- 
MENTS OF  THE  ANTE-DORIAN  ERA.  TRIPODS  OF  THE  ISMENIAN  SANCTU- 
ARY.    11.    OTHER  CADMEAN    MONUMENTS. 

PART    II.      WRITING    FOR   LITERARY   PURPOSES. 

12.    GENERAL    REMARKS.  13.    ATHENIAN    OSTRACISM.  —  14.    PUBLIC    OPINION 

OP  EARLY    GREECE.       STATE    OF    EDUCATION.       TEXT    OF    "  HESIOD."      STESI- 

CHORUS.         ARCHILOCHUS.  15.    SPARTAN     SCYTALE.  16.    EDUCATION     IN 

SPARTA.  CRETE.  LAWS  OF  LYCURGUS.  OTHER  EARLY  WRITTEN  CODES. 
PHILOLAUS.  PHIDON.  17.  WANT  OP  CONVENIENT  MATERIAL, 18.  A  PAS- 
SAGE OF    THUCYDIDES.       PARCHMENT.       PAPYRUS. 19.    MEMORIAL    RECITAL, 

OR  RHAPSODISM. 20.  LAWS  SET  TO  MUSIC.  LATENESS  OF  PROSE  COMPO- 
SITION.  21.    HOSIER. 22.    LETTERS    OF  BELLEROPHON.       OTHER    HOMERIC 

ALLUSIONS  TO  WRITING.       CONCLUSION. 

Part  I.     MONUMENTAL  INSCRIPTIONS. 

1.  The  early  history  of  the  art  of  writing  in  Greece  introdnc- 
has,  in  the  course  of  the  more  searching  investigations  mZu.' 
to  which  it  has  of  late  years  been  subjected,  usually 
been  treated  in  immediate  connexion  with  the  history 
of  the  Homeric  poems.  This  arrangement  was  natu- 
ral, perhaps  even  in  some  degree  necessary,  in  the 
more  elementary  stage  of  the  joint  inquiry,  in  so  far 
as  the  former  branch  of  that  inquiry  naturally  con- 
centrated itself  around  the  most  antient  accredited 


398  EARLY   HISTORY    OF    WRITING.  Book  III. 

remains  of  literary  composition.  But  the  turn  given 
to  the  whole  subject  by  the  subsequent  treatment  of 
its  Homeric  element,  has  tended  greatly  to  obstruct 
the  sound  course  of  critical  research.  The  question 
concerning  the  origin  and  early  use  of  alphabetic 
writing  thus  became,  in  a  manner,  circumscribed 
within  the  narrow  limits  of  certain  speculative  theo- 
ries as  to  the  state  of  Homeric  criticism  in  the  days 
of  the  Pisistratidos,  to  the  exclusion  of  all  more  en- 
larged views  of  the  facts  or  authorities  essentially 
bearing  on  the  actual  progress  of  literary  culture  in 
Greece.  It  has  been  shown,  in  the  course  of  the  fore- 
going narrative,  that  the  interval  between  the  age  of 
Pisistratus  and  that  of  the  original  composition  of  the 
Homeric  poems  comprehends  one  of  the  most  brilliant 
periods  of  Greek  literature ;  a  period  abounding,  as 
Cicero  has  remarked,  with  authors,  many  of  whose 
names  are  still  the  most  illustrious  in  their  various 
branches  of  composition  ;  names  not  representing 
doubtful  or  semifabulous  personalities,  but  poets  and 
musicians  of  well-attested  historical  existence,  pro- 
foundly skilled  in  the  subtlest  technical  refinements 
of  their  respective  arts.  Every  intelligent  reader 
must  perceive,  how  essential  a  careful  and  compre- 
hensive previous  survey  of  this  first  strictly  historical 
age  of  literature  must  be,  to  any  just  estimate  of  the 
progress  of  an  art  without  which  no  such  organised 
system  of  literary  culture  could  possibly  exist.  But, 
in  the  process  hitherto  pursued,  this  whole  period  is 
virtually  overlooked,  or  at  the  most  appealed  to  for 
the  sake  of  a  few  incidental  illustrations.  A  dif- 
ferent method  has  here  therefore  been  preferred.  A 
general  view  of  the  extent  and  mode  in  which  tlie 
intellectual  powers  of  the  Hellenes,  during  this  youth- 


Ch.  VII.  §1.        MOOTTMENTAL   INSCRIPTIONS.  399 

ful  and  genial  period  of  their  literature,  were  dis- 
played, has  been  considered  indispensable  to  a  right 
estimate  of  the  technical  aids  requisite  for  the  deve- 
loj^ement  or  exercise  of  those  powers. 

That  the  Hellenes  were  indebted  for  their  first  cadmean 
knowledge  of  the  art  of  writing  to  the  Phoenicians,  is  *''^'^'*^''^°- 
a  tradition  of  the  historical  value  of  which  we  have 
proof  altogether  distinct  from  its  own  antiquity  or 
universality,  in  the  characters  of  the  Greek  alphabet. 
The  evidence  which  the  names,  forms,  and  arrange- 
ment of  those  characters  afford  of  their  Oriental 
origin  has  already  been  considered.-^  In  regard  to 
the  period  at  which  a  knowledge  of  them  was  first 
communicated  to  the  Greeks  we  are  left,  as  on  other 
points  of  earliest  Hellenic  culture,  altogether  de- 
pendant on  mythical  sources.  There  are  however 
few  national  legends  which,  on  the  twofold  ground 
of  internal  probability  and  the  inveterate  conviction 
of  the  enlightened  native  public  in  its  favour,  can 
advance  stronger  claims  to  the  character  of  historical 
fact,  than  that  which  ascribes  the  introduction  of  the 
alphabet  to  the  Oriental  colonies  figured,  in  the  name 
and  person  of  the  hero  Cadmus,  as  having  settled 
in  Greece,  chiefly  in  Boeotia,  at  an  early  mythical 
period.  This  legend  is  at  least  broadly  distinguished 
by  the  above-mentioned  more  solid  characteristics 
from  various  other  traditions  of  mere  local  or  poetical 
origin,  invented  in  honour  of  certain  heroes  or  tribes, 
and  according  to  which  there  is  scarcely  a  Greek 
patriarchal  chief  celebrated  for  ingenuity  in  the  ele- 
mentary sciences,  to  whom  the  discovery  of  this  es- 
sentially Phoenician  art  has  not  been  attributed :  such 
are  Prometheus,  Orpheus,  Musa^us,  Linus,  Chiron, 
Palamedes.     There  is  one  point  however  on  which 

^  Vol.  I.  p.  78.  sqq. 


400  EARLY   HISTORY    OF   WRITING.  Book  IIT. 

all  these  traditions,  to  whatever  extent  they  may 
differ  on  other  points,  are  unanimous.  They  all  agree 
in  tracing  the  first  knowledge  of  writing  in  Greece 
to  a  remote  mythical  era. 

The  Cadmean  legend,  in  any  more  critical  es- 
timate of  its  bearings  on  the  history  of  the  art, 
must  be  viewed  in  a  more  extended  light  than  that 
in  which  it  is  usually  contemplated,  as  limited  to 
a  single  Sidonian  colonist  in  Boeotia.  Cadmus  is  a 
term  of  palpably  Phoenician  origin,  signifying  Eastern 
or  "  Man  of  the  East ; "  just  as  Norman,  in  our  own 
heroic  age,  which  here  in  other  respects  offers  various 
points  of  parallel,  signifies  "  Man  of  the  North."  Ac- 
cordingly, in  almost  every  part  of  the  Hellenic  world 
where  notice  exists  of  early  Phoenician  influence,  that 
influence  is  found  connected  more  or  less  directly  with 
"  Cadmean  "  enterprise.  Either  Cadmus  himself,  ou 
his  voyage  to  Greece,  is  described  as  leaving  a  detach- 
ment of  his  followers  on  the  coast,  or  a  colony  of  his 
descendants  is  reported  to  have  subsequently  settled 
on  it.  Such  are  the  traditions  of  Cadmean  settlement 
in  Thasos,  Thera,  Rhodes,  Samothrace,  Lesbos.^  Nor 
can  the  old  Milesian  variety  of  the  legend,  which,  as 
mentioned  in  a  former  page,  assigned  the  first  intro- 
duction of  the  alphabet  to  Danalis'^,  be  held  as  mi- 
litating against  the  spirit  of  the  genuine  Cadmean 
tradition  ;  Danalis  and  Cadmus  being  in  the  Milesian 
account  represented  as  kinsmen  and  fellow-fugitives, 
both  of  Phoenician  race,  who  simultaneously  sought 
an  asylum  in  Hellas.    The  Peloponnesian  associations 

^  Herodot.  iv.  cxlvii. ;  Pausan.  iii.  i.  7. ;  Diod.  v.  Iviii. ;  conf.  Bocliart, 
Geogr.  Sacr.  pp.  366.  385.  394.  424.  sq.  When  "Cadmus"  is  described 
(Boch.  op.  cit.  p.  467.)  as  founding  a  hundred  cities  in  Africa,  the  figurative 
import  of  the  term  becomes  still  more  palpable.     See  Appendix  G. 

-  Vol.  I.  p.  76.  note. 


Ch.  VII.  §1.        MONUMENTAL   INSCRIPTIONS.  401 

of  the  early  Ionian  school  of  antiquaries  would  natu- 
rally lead  them  to  prefer  the  claims  of  the  Argive 
to  those  of  the  Bceotian  settler. 

Historical  authority  therefore,  in  so  far  as  repre- 
sented by  an  inveterate  national  conviction,  extending, 
as  may  be  proved  by  existing  passages  of  contempo- 
rary authors,  back  into  the  seventh  century  b.  c,  is 
unanimous  in  ascribing  the  introduction  of  the  art 
of  writing  into  Greece  to  her  purely  mythical  age. 
Nor  is  it  easy  to  understand  how,  in  the  face  of  this 
fact,  room  should  have  been  found  in  any  reasonable 
quarter  for  the  lately  popular  theory,  which  would 
assign  the  first  knowledge  of  the  same  art  in  that 
country  to  the  period  subsequent  to  the  settlement 
of  the  Ionian  colonies,  and  its  first  familiar  use  to  the 
age  of  the  Pisistratida?,  or  the  latter  part  of  the  sixth 
century  B.C.  It  seems  incredible  that  the  Greek  lite- 
rary public,  even  in  the  generation  immediately  after 
Pisistratus,  should  have  ascribed  a  remote  mythical 
origin  to  a  practice  which  could  hardly  be  traced 
beyond  the  time  of  their  own  immediate  ancestors. 
Still  more  wonderful  would  it  be  that  Stesichorus, 
who  flourished  about  half  a  century  prior  to  the 
Athenian  usurper,  should  have  attributed,  as  he  did 
in  his  Orestia^  to  Palamedes,  a  hero  of  the  Trojan 
war,  the  introduction  into  Greece  of  an  art  which 
was  scarcely  practised  in  that  country  by  the  grand- 
children of  Stesichorus  himself. 

The  arguments  to  which  weight  has  chiefly  been 
attached  in  favour  of  the  proposed  reduction  of  the 
age  of  writing  in  Greece  are,  first,  the  absence  of 
well  accredited  written  monuments  in  suflicient  num- 

1  Dionys.  Thr.  ap.  Bekk.  Anecd.  Gr.  p.  783.  78G. ;  conf.  Klein,  Fragni. 
Steslch.  xxxviu. ;  Franz,  Elem.  Epigr.  Gr.  p.  12.  sqq. 
VOL.  III.  D    D 


402  EARLY   HISTORY    OF   WRITING.  Book  IH. 

bcrs,  or  of  so  great  antiquity,  as  to  justify  the  belief 
of  any  familiar  use  of  letters  prior  to  the  age  of  Pisi- 
stratns ;  secondly,  the  rudeness  of  the  form,  of  the 
material,  and  of  the  alphabetic  characters  of  those 
earlier  dedications ;  thirdly,  the  silence  of  the  more 
antient  Greek  literary  compositions,  especially  the 
Iliad  and  Odyssey,  on  the  subject  of  writing,  and  the 
internal  evidence  which  their  text  supplies  of  igno- 
rance of  the  art  on  the  part  of  their  authors ;  fourthly, 
the  extensive  prevalence  of  the  practice  of  rhapsodism, 
or  memorial  recitation,  as  a  substitute  for  writing.^ 

In  the  treatment  of  this  question  a  twofold  dis- 
tinction has  usually  been  drawn :  first,  between  the 
epoch  of  the  earliest  knowledge  of  the  alphabet  in 
Greece  and  the  epoch  of  its  more  familiar  use ;  se- 
condly, between  its  employment  in  inscriptions  on 
wood,  stone,  or  metal,  and  its  adaptation  to  literary 
purposes,  properly  so  called,  on  pliable  material.^ 

The  distinction  is  in  itself  well  founded,  and  will 
be  kept  in  view  accordingly  in  the  conduct  of  the 
following  inquiry  ;  since  it  is  certain,  as  a  general 
rule,  that  in  every  science  rude  efforts  must  precede 
familiar  practice,  and  that  the  more  extensive  such 
j)ractice  becomes,  the  more  copious  and  commodious 
will  be  the  material  for  its  exercise. 

^  See  a  concise  abstract  of  these  arguments  in  Miiller,  Hist,  of  Gr. 
Lit.  vol.  I.  p.  37.  sqq. 

-  This  is,  in  fact,  the  order  in  which  the  Jewish  antiquary  Josephus, 
the  keenest  and  acutest  classical  opponent  of  the  antiquity  of  Greek 
civilisation,  and  a  standard  authority  with  those  who,  in  the  present  age, 
have  adopted  the  same  views,  has,  in  his  tract  against  Apion  (i.  2.), 
arranged  his  line  of  objection.  While  not  actually  denying  the  intro- 
duction of  letters  by  Cadmus,  he  questions  the  existence  of  any  inscribed 
monument  of  the  age  of  the  Trojan  war.  He  then  Quotes  the  general 
opinion  even  of  the  native  Greeks,  that  no  genuine  literary  work  was 
extant  of  a  date  prior  to  the  Homeric  poems ;  which  apparent  exception 
in  their  favour  is  qualified  by  a  doubt  whether  even  they  were  committed 
to  writing  until  some  time  after  their  composition. 


Cn.  VII.  §  2.        MONUMENTAL   INSCRIPTIONS.  403 

2.  A  fertile  source  of  error  in  researches  into  Rules  for 
antient  history  is  the  neglect  properly  to  appreciate  Lt-e^of " 
the  different  2:enius  of  society  in  different  ao;es  of  the  "^"'^c''" 

G  J^  n  research. 

world,  and  a  consequent  readiness  to  adopt  the  habits 
and  associations  of  our  own  day  as  criteria  for  judging 
those  of  other  nations  and  times.  Hence,  where  any 
points  of  antient  manners  are  distinguished  by  cer- 
tain marked  features  of  difference  from  the  parallel 
usage  of  our  own  age,  we  are  apt  to  account  for  the 
apparent  anomaly  by  specific  causes  of  an  equally 
anomalous  nature,  and  are  thus  led  into  false  or  ex- 
aggerated conclusions,  which  a  reasonable  attention 
to  incidental  circumstances  peculiar  to  one  or  other 
state  of  society  might  have  enabled  us  to  avoid.  In 
few  questions  has  a  want  of  such  discrimination  been 
more  productive  of  serious  misunderstanding  than  in 
that  relative  to  the  early  history  of  writing  in  Greece. 
In  order,  therefore,  to  guard  in  as  far  as  possible 
against  any  similar  misunderstanding  in  our  own 
case,  it  is  here  proposed,  before  entering  on  the  details 
of  the  inquiry,  to  establish,  in  respect  to  some  of  its 
more  important  heads,  certain  primary  data,  or  first 
principles,  by  reference  to  which  it  will  be  guided. 

Among  the  Greeks,  and  probably  most  other  an-  Number 
tient  races  who  made  early  advances  in  civilisation,  cuiiaTcha- 
the  oldest  preserved  specimens  of  writino;  transmitted  '^cter  of 
to  later  posterity  were  mscriptions  on  the  polished  inscribed 
surfaces  of  stone,  wood,  or  other  hard  materials.    The  ment"' 
Greek  antiquaries  in  the  time  of  Herodotus  pretended 
accordingly,    with  what   reason  will   be    considered 
hereafter,  to  show  such  inscriptions  dating  prior  to 
the  Trojan  war ;  and  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  in 
the  days  of  that  historian  there  were  extant  engraved 
monuments  of  the  ninth  or  tenth  centuries  before  the 

»  D   2 


404  EARLY    HISTORY    OF   WRITING.  Book  IH. 

Christian  era.  But  there  is  no  trace  of  the  same 
curious  persons  having  advanced  even  a  pretension 
to  possess  records  of  any  remote  antiquity  on  parch- 
ment or  other  cartaceous  material.  In  our  own 
times  the  case  is  exactly  the  reverse.  There  are  few 
of  the  earlier  civilised  nations  of  modern  Europe  but 
can  exhibit  numerous  documents  on  parchment  or 
paper,  executed  at  a  period  of  which  it  would  be 
difficult  to  discover  a  single  record  inscribed  on  stone 
or  metal.  This  distinctive  feature  of  the  two  states 
of  society,  may  be  traced  to  the  same  source  already 
frequently  appealed  to  in  other  parts  of  this  his- 
tory: the  fundamental  difference  in  the  circum- 
stances under  which  antient  and  modern  civilisation 
had  their  orioin.  Greek  culture  advanced  from  in- 
fancy  to  maturity  with  the  spontaneous  develope- 
ment  of  the  national  genius ;  the  culture  of  modern 
Europe  was  for  many  centuries  but  a  reconstruction 
from  the  ruins  of  a  previous  state  of  society.  We 
inherited  the  art  of  writing  from  a  people  among 
wliom  it  may  be  said  already  to  have  reached  its 
perfection,  together  with  a  plentiful  material  for  its 
exercise,  and  with  a  literature  already  fully  matured 
and  perfected  as  the  guide  to  our  own  progress  in 
scientific  pursuit.  The  Greeks,  on  the  other  hand, 
received  the  same  art  from  a  people  among  whom 
it  had  as  yet  advanced  but  little  beyond  its  elemen- 
tary stages  ;  from  a  people  not  of  literary  habits 
in  the  more  enlarged  sense,  and  among  whom  its 
use  was  confined  chiefly  to  works  of  necessity. 
They  received  it  in  an  age  when  the  supply  of 
convenient  material  for  its  practice  was  compara- 
tively small,  and  when  the  benefits  to  be  derived 
from  that  practice  held  out  proportionally  little  in- 


Ch.  VII.  §  2.        MONUMENTAL   INSCRIPTIONS.  405 

ducement  to  study  or  exertion.  Under  such  circum- 
stances, the  materials  to  which  a  newly  instructed 
semibarbarous  people  would  instinctively  resort,  as 
combining  facility  both  of  execution  and  preservation, 
for  the  few  works  of  utility  or  necessity  to  which 
the  art  would  in  the  first  instance  be  limited, 
would  be  wood,  stone,  and  other  hard  substances. 
To  these,  accordingly,  the  earliest  literary  efforts  of 
the  Greeks  may  be  supposed  to  have  been  solely  or 
chiefly  confined.  But  what  was  once  necessity  often 
becomes  habit  or  fashion :  and  the  practice  of  per- 
petuating public  documents  by  preference  in  this 
form  was  maintained,  or  even  greatly  extended,  long 
after  more  convenient  material  for  their  circulation 
was  abundant.  Hence  the  following  curious  distinc- 
tion :  in  the  darkest  periods  of  modern  medieval 
ignorance,  when  the  knowledge  of  letters  was  far 
less  extended  probably  than  at  any  epoch  of  Grecian 
history  subsequent  to  the  Olympic  era,  treaties 
of  peace,  charters,  and  other  similar  documents  were 
committed  to  parchment  and  paper,  and  a  public 
record  of  those  periods,  of  any  other  than  a  sepulchral 
character,  engraved  on  stone  or  any  hard  substance, 
is  a  thing  of  which  it  were  difficult  to  find  an  ex- 
ample :  in  Greece  and  Rome,  on  the  other  hand,  even 
in  the  palmy  days  of  their  literature,  when  education 
was  the  birthright  of  every  citizen,  the  most  im- 
portant national  registers  and  state  diplomas,  treaties 
of  peace,  laws,  fasti  consulares,  even  military  lists 
and  muster  rolls,  were  dependant  all  but  exclusively 
on  sculptured  tables  for  their  legal  publicity.  This 
distinction  supplies  in  itself  a  sufficient  answer  to 
the  popular  argument  against  any  familiar  use  of 
the  alphabet  in  the  primitive  ages  of  Greece,  Avhicli 


406 


EAELY  HISTORY   OF   WRITING. 


Book  IIT. 


Their 
chances  of 
preserva- 
tiou. 


has  been  founded  on  the  circumstance  of  the  laws 
of  Draco  and  Solon,  or  other  similar  state  registers, 
having  been  promulgated  on  material  no  way  adapted 
for  literary  purposes  in  the  wider  sense.  The  peculi- 
arity, if  such  it  be,  is  one  obviously  of  manners  and 
usage,  involving  neither  capacity  nor  inability  to 
pursue  a  different  method.  Had  parchment  or  papy- 
rus been  as  plentiful  in  the  age  of  Solon  or  Servius  as 
in  that  of  Cicero,  those  lawgivers  would  not  have  the 
less  resorted  to  wood,  metal,  or  stone,  for  their  public 
registers  ;  while,  had  the  supply  of  the  lighter  ma- 
terial totally  failed  during  our  own  dark  ages,  it 
might  be  a  question  whether  our  semibarbarous  an- 
cestors would  have  been  sufficiently  zealous  scribes 
to  have  had  recourse  to  their  iron  mines  or  freestone 
quarries  for  a  substitute.^ 

3.  Thus  far  concerning  the  number  and  character 
of  the  earlier  specimens  of  Greek  alphabetic  writing. 
Attention  must  now  be  directed  to  their  chances  of 
preservation.  Inscribed  monuments  of  remote  date 
may,  with  reference  to  the  present  question,  be  con- 
sidered under  two  heads:  first,  those  recorded  by 
later  classical  writers  as  extant  in  their  own  days ; 

^  How  inveterate  this  custom  remained  up  to  the  latest  period  of 
classical  antiquity,  appears  from  the  mass  of  inscriptions  preserved  in  the 
Vatican,  Capitol,  and  other  repositories  of  antient  epigraphy.  Among 
these  monuments,  besides  testaments  and  other  documents  which  in 
modern  times  it  never  occurred  probably  to  the  most  eccentric  scribe, 
either  before  or  after  the  invention  of  printing,  to  embody  in  such  a 
form,  are  found  many  (such  as  muster  rolls  of  soldiers,  of  whole  garrisons 
or  cohorts)  destined  for  mere  temporary  use.  In  the  fire  of  the  Capitol 
under  Vitellius  were  destroyed  3000  inscribed  tables  of  brass,  which. 
Vespasian  (Sueton.  in  vit.  viii.)  replaced  from  other  copies  of  the 
same  deeds  preser\-ed  elsewhere  :  "  undique  investigatis  exemplaribus." 
The  more  pliable  kinds  of  metal  seem  also,  in  the  early  ages  of  Greece, 
to  have  been  occasionally  resorted  to  for  the  promulgation  of  literary 
works  of  peculiar  interest.  Pans.  ix.  xxxi.  3.,  iv.  xxvi.  6. ;  cf.  Nitzsch, 
Hist.  Horn.  p.  73.  sqq. ;  Montfauc.  Palaeogr.  Gr.  p.  16. 


Ch.  Vn.  §  3.        MONmiENTAL   INSCRIPTIONS.  407 

secondly,  those  actually  preserved  to  modern  times. 
It  may  on  a  superficial  view  appear  strange,  had 
the  practice  of  monumental  writing  been  of  any 
remote  antiquity  in  Greece,  that  not  one  specimen 
should  yet  have  been  discovered  bearing  distinct  in- 
ternal evidence  of  an  epoch  prior  to  the  Olympic  era. 
The  science  of  Greek  palaeography  is  still,  perhaps, 
in  too  unsettled  a  state  to  admit  of  any  solid  argument 
being  grounded  either  on  the  age  or  the  authenticity 
of  extant  inscriptions.  There  is  also  too  much  reason 
to  believe  that  those  who  of  late  years  have  chiefly  de- 
voted themselves  to  this  branch  of  research  ^  have,  in 
doubtful  cases,  been  disposed  rather  to  make  the  doc- 
trines of  the  modern  sceptical  school  a  guide  to  their 
decisions,  than  to  avail  themselves  of  the  results  of 
impartial  investigation  as  a  test  of  those  doctrines. 
But  even  admitting  the  entire  deficiency  of  all  writ- 
ten monuments  of  so  remote  a  date,  that  deficiency 
were  no  proof  whatever  that  many  may  not  have  been 
executed.  The  farther  back  we  go,  it  is  obvious  that 
both  the  number  of  such  monuments  and  the  chances 
of  their  preservation  diminish  in  an  equal  ratio.  In 
the  infancy  of  the  art  of  writing,  the  efibrts  of  its  cul- 
tivators were  not  only  fewer,  but  confined  chiefly  to 
the  more  easily  wrought,  and  by  consequence  more 
perishable  materials,  such  as  wood  or  soft  stone,  rather 
than  metal  or  marble.     Hence,  the  more  such  memo- 

^  Boeckh  more  especially,  whose  preliminary  dissertation  to  his  Corp. 
Iiiscr.  Grajc.  is  little  more  than  a  piece  of  able  special  pleading  in  favour 
of  the  Wolfiaa  theory.  The  author  has  been  gratified  to  observe  that 
his  learned  and  ingenious  friend  Dr.  Franz  has  not  been  withheld, 
by  his  respectful  deference  to  the  authority  of  his  own  distinguished 
friend  and  master,  from  following  a  more  liberal  and  impartial  course 
in  his  valuable  work,  the  Elementa  Epigraphices  Gracciu,  Introd.  §  iv. 
De  iEtate  Scriptura3,  p.  30. 

D  D   4 


408  EARLY   IIISTOl^Y   OF   WRITING.  Book  III. 

rials  were  exposed  to  the  ravages  of  time,  the  less  they 
were  qualilied  to  resist  them.  Let  us  assume,  for 
tlie  sake  of  argument,  but  one  thousand  inscriptions 
to  have  been  executed  in  Greece  prior  to  the  Olympic 
era,  and  let  us  calculate,  by  the  analogy  of  parallel 
cases  in  historical  times,  what  are  the  chances  that 
a  single  one  of  that  number  should  now  be  extant. 
Let  us  take,  as  a  basis  of  this  calculation,  the  probable 
number  of  such  documents  executed  in  Attica  be- 
tween the  first  Olympiad  (77G  b.  c.)  and  the  final 
settlement  of  the  Attic  orthography  by  Euclides  in 
the  xcivth  Olympiad  (404  b.  c.)  ;  those  accumulated 
on  edifices  public  and  private,  in  market-places  and 
thoroughfjires,  on  monuments  sacred,  civil,  sepulchral, 
or  triumphal,  during  this  the  most  flourishing  period 
of  the  most  civilised  and  literary  commonwealth  in 
Greece.  They  can  scarcely  be  rated  at  less  than  fifty 
times  the  number  above  allowed  to  all  Greece  during 
the  remote  semibarbarous  ages  of  her  art  of  alpha- 
betic writing.  Yet  of  the  extant  Attic  inscriptions 
there  are  not  fifty  ^ ;  not  one  in  a  thousand,  conse- 
(piently,  to  which  a  date  prior  to  Euclides  can  with 
any  probability  be  assigned.  The  chances,  then,  are 
infinitely  against  the  transmission  to  posterity  of  even 
a  single  one  of  the  ante-Olympic  thousand.  The 
analogy  may  be  transferred  to  the  primitive  stages 
of  modern  art.  It  were  probably  not  easy  to  find  in 
Great  Britain  a  single  inscribed  stone  or  metal  monu- 
ment of  the  Anglo-Saxon  age.^     Yet  it  will  not  be 

'  See  Boeckh,  Corp.  Inscr.  Gr.  vol.  i.  No.  lxx.  sqq.  The  utmost 
number  that  the  author  has  been  able  to  collect  out  of  the  whole  twelve 
classes  amounts  to  about  forty-five. 

-  Admitting  Pausanias  (see  infra,  §  7.  sqq.)  to  have  seen  but  twenty 
genuine  inscriptions  ranging  over  the  three  centuries  between  the  middle 
of  the  ninth  and  the  middle  of  the  sixth  century  b.c.  (the  epoch  of  Pisi- 
slratus),  the  oldest  of  them  would  have  dated  1000,  the  most  recent  about 


Cu.  VII.  §  3.        MONUMENTAL   INSCRIPTIONS.  400 

denied  that  writing  was  familiarly  practised  in  Eng- 
land in  the  ninth  century,  and  more  or  less  habitually 
applied  by  the  inhabitants  of  that  country  to  monu- 
mental literature,  to  sepulchral  inscriptions,  land- 
marks and  the  like.  The  fallacy  of  any  negative 
argument  founded  on  the  nonexistence  of  inscrip- 
tions of  remote  date,  is  further  apparent  from  the 
consideration  that  the  same  argument  would  equally 
disprove  the  execution,  at  the  same  period,  of  all  works 
Avhatever  of  the  class  on  Avhich  it  was  customary  to 
engrave  letters.  It  were  as  difficult  to  produce  an 
uninscribed  urn,  tripod,  or  tombstone,  which  anti- 
quaries would  acknowledge  coeval  with  Homer,  as 
one  bearing  an  inscription.  Yet  no  one  would  ques- 
tion the  existence  of  such  monuments  in  Homer's 
time,  in  the  face  of  numberless  passages  of  his  poems 
where  they  are  alluded  to  as  abundant.  The  mere 
want  of  preservation  can  be  no  more  valid  argument 
in  the  one  case  than  in  the  other. 

The  argument  against  the  antiquity  of  alphabetic 
writing,  founded  ^  on  the  absence  of  written  legends 
on  the  older  specimens  of  Greek  coined  money,  affords 
another  signal  instance  of  the  mode  in  which  matters 
altogether  extraneous  to  this  question  have  been 
forced  into  connexion  with  it.  That  coinage  is  itself 
a  practice  standing  in  no  necessary  relation  to  literary 
culture  is  proved  by  the  case  of  the  Phoenicians  and 
other  Asiatic  nations,  who,  although  familiar  with 
the  art    of  writing  long  before  the  Greeks,  are  in- 

700  years  prior  to  his  own  time.  "We  question  whether  the  most  diligent 
British  antiquary  of  the  present  day  could  produce  half  as  many  from  the 
cathedrals  and  cemeteries  of  England,  ranging  between  the  years  850 
and  1150  of  our  era.  Yet  the  monuments  of  Greece  had  suffered  in 
the  time  of  Pausanias  far  more  frequent  and  more  fatal  ravages  than  any 
to  which  those  of  Britain  have  yet  been  subjected. 
1  Miillcr,  Hist,  of  Gr.  Lit.  vol.  i.  p.  38. 


410  EARLY  HISTORY   OF   WRITING.  Book  HI. 

debtee!  to  the  Greeks  for  that  of  coinage ;  and  the 
Egyptians,  who  wrote  after  their  own  fashion  some 
thousand  years  before  the  Greeks,  appear  never  to 
have  had  any  coined  money.  The  primary  object 
of  coinage,  that  of  stamping,  by  a  certain  device, 
the  genuine  character  or  weight  of  the  minuter  parts 
of  the  circulating  medium,  was  one  for  the  attain- 
ment of  which  ciphers  or  symbols  would  probably, 
in  the  first  instance,  suggest  themselves  more  natu- 
rally, even  in  an  age  of  literary  culture,  than  alpha- 
betical characters.  Such  symbols  are,  in  fact,  still 
preferred  to  letters  among  ourselves,  in  certain  cases, 
as  marks  of  metalhc  purity, 
compara-  4'  Another  feature  of  distinction  between  antient 
tive  neglect  and  modcm  times,  of  no  little  importance  as  bearinoj 

of  Black-  ,....,  .  ,  ,  , 

letter  pur-  on  tliis  inquiry,  IS  the  comparative  neglect,  by  the 
Greecl.  Greeks,  of  a  branch  of  scientific  pursuit,  which,  under 
the  name  of  Black-letter  taste,  has  obtained*  so  exten- 
sive a  popularity  in  the  present  age.  The  zeal  for  an- 
tiquarian study,  so  characteristic  of  modern  science, 
has  in  another  place  been  pointed  out  as  the  result, 
in  a  great  measure,  of  our  dependance  on  the  antients 
for  our  first  advances  in  the  polite  arts ;  and  here 
again,  as  in  the  case  of  the  sculptured  literature  of 
Greece  and  Rome,  what  originated  in  necessity  has 
since  ripened  into  habit  and  taste.  But  the  Greeks, 
individualised  in  their  own  national  feeling,  and  de- 
pendant on  no  previous  state  of  society  for  the  pro- 
gress of  their  own  culture,  had  no  such  inducement  to 
retrospective  study.  The  investigation  of  the  remote 
antiquities,  even  of  their  own  country,  was  to  them 
matter  of  comparatively  small  practical  utility.  They 
had  no  lost  arts  to  recover,  no  extinct  civilisation  to 
resuscitate.     Proud    of   their    actual   superiority   in 


Cn.  VIT.  §4.        MONUMENTAL   INSCRIPTIONS.  411 

knowledge  and  taste  to  other  nations,  and  attached 
by  habit  and  superstition  to  the  fabulous  legends 
which  formed  so  graceful  a  substructure  to  their 
existing  splendid  edifice  of  science  and  learning,  they 
felt  little  disposition  to  mar  the  symmetry  or  unity 
of  the  whole  fabric  by  any  close  scrutiny  of  the 
ruder  materials  of  which  the  basement  was  composed. 
It  is  not  therefore  until  after  the  decay  of  original 
genius,  and  the  loss  of  national  independance,  had 
led  them  to  look  back  with  melancholy  fondness 
to  every  memorial  of  their  antient  glory,  that 
any  distinct  traces  appear  of  a  taste  for  the  branch 
of  antiquarian  pursuit  here  under  consideration. 
In  the  days  of  Herodotus  a  manuscript  was  valu- 
able only  in  so  far  as  it  was  useful.  When  worn 
out  it  was  transcribed,  and  probably  destroyed  as 
waste  paper.  Hence  the  absence  of  all  notice,  in 
later  times,  of  original  manuscripts,  not  to  say  of 
Homer  ^  or  Hesiod,  but  of  Archilochus,  Sappho,  Ana- 

^  Hence  too  might  be  explained  the  fact,  could  it  be  established  as 
such,  so  pointedly  pressed  by  Giese  (De  Dial.  ^ol.  p.  163.  sq.),  that  all 
the  standard  antient  MSB.  of  the  Homeric  poems  at  the  disposal  of  the 
Alexandrian  gi'ammarians  were  written  in  the  "  Ionian  "  alphabet  (that 
is,  in  an  alphabet  of  which  the  long  vowels  rj  and  a>  already  formed  part)  ; 
the  use  of  which  alphabet  did  not  become  general  in  European  Greece 
until  the  xcivth  01.  (404  b.c),  although  familiar  probably  in  Asia,  as 
Giese  himself  observes,  several  centuries  before.  His  argument  as  to  the 
Homeric  MSS.  is  grounded  on  the  frequent  occurrence  of  appeals  by 
the  Alexandrian  critics  to  the  Chian,  Massiliotic,  and  other  old  texts,  in 
questions  as  to  the  best- authorised  readings  of  words  such  as  ixax^Tonai 
and  fx.ax^crofxai,  Kdaraip  and  Kdcrrop,  ovtchs  and  ovros,  where  the  e  or  77,  *o 
or  w,  might,  on  mere  grammatical  grounds,  be  equally  admissible.  Such 
appeals,  he  urges,  would  be  nugatory,  unless  the  distinction  between  those 
several  letters  had  been  as  plainly  drawn  in  the  old  codices  as  in  the  editions 
founded  on  them.  So  probably  it  may  have  been.  But  his  theory  as  to 
the  mode  in  which  he  supposes  it  must  have  been  drawn,  is  set  aside  or 
greatly  invalidated  by  abundant  evidence,  supplied  both  by  classical 
grammarians  and  by  antient  inscriptions,  of  another  fact  overlooked  by 


412  EARLY   HISTORY   OF   WRITING.  Book  III. 

crcon,  even  of  Herodotus  or  his  contemporaries, 
having  been  preserved,  still  less  cherished  as  objects 
of  curiosity  or  interest.  In  the  few  instances  where 
veneration  was  attached  to  cartaceous  documents, 
a  purely  religious  motive  may  be  traced.  The 
case  was  somewhat  different  in  regard  to  monu- 
mental inscriptions.  Many  of  these,  being  of  a 
dedicatory  character,  were  guaranteed  by  their  sanc- 
tity from  wilful  destruction.  Many  also  possessed, 
in  their  matter  or  style,  a  historical  or  literary  value 
altogether  distinct  from  antiquarian  considerations. 
Hence,  the  literature  of  monumental  epigraphy  seems 
to  have  been  cultivated  with  some  diligence  from  the 
Alexandrian  era  downwards.  But,  of  strictly  palseo- 
graphical  or  black-letter  research,  even  here  little  or 
no  trace  is  observable.^ 
Supposed  From   this   absence   either   of  allusion  by   Greek 

tmild7  authors  to  preserved  literary  manuscripts  of  remote 
antiquity,  or  of  pretension  to  possess  such  docu- 
ments, a  further  inference  may  be  derived,  tending 
to  vindicate  the  Greek  archseologers  from  the  very 
rude  charges  of  dishonesty  to  which  they  have  been 
exposed  in  the  modern  schools.  As  the  authority 
of  those  native  writers  often  interfered  greatly  with 
the  late  speculative  theories,  it  has  been  customary 
to  pronounce  the  monumental  inscriptions  cited  by 
them  to  be  forgeries,  and  themselves  dupes  or  ac- 
complices of  the  priests,  or  of  others  interested  in 
this  fraudulent  mode  of  augmenting  their  stock  of 

him,  that  in  the  old,  in  itself  less  definite,  Attic  alphabet,  it  was 
customary  in  metrical  texts  to  distinguish  the  quantity  of  the  doubtful 
vowels  by  accents  or  marks,  somewhat  as  in  modern  prosody.  The 
authorities  on  this  point  have  been  collected  by  Villoison,  in  his  preface  to 
the  Venetian  Scholia  (p.  v.  sqq.). 

1  Conf.  Franz,  Elem.  Epigraph.  Gr.  p.  9. 


C«.  VII.  §4.        MONUMENTAL   INSCRirTIONS.  413 

local  curiosities.  A  more  impartial  view  of  the  case 
would  rather  tend  to  relieve  the  Greeks  from  any 
serious  imputation  of  this  kind.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  popular  tradition  loved  to  assign  obscure 
or  illegible  monuments  of  early  date,  by  preference, 
to  a  remote  fabulous  antiquity ;  and  frauds  may  also, 
no  doubt,  have  occasionally  been  committed.  Yet  it 
is  somewhat  remarkable,  that  of  monuments  fabricated 
for  the  express  purpose  of  imposing  on  the  public  no 
authentic  example  has  yet  been  adduced.  Nor  is  it 
easy  to  reconcile  with  the  late  assumption  of  a  pre- 
valence of  such  frauds  in  works  of  stone  or  brass, 
the  other  undeniable  fact,  that  not  a  vestige  of  evi- 
dence should  be  extant  of  any  similar  attempt  at 
forgery  having  ever  been  made  in  the  case  of  literary 
manuscripts.  How  happens  it  that  it  never  should 
have  occurred  to  the  same  zealous  bands  of  falsifiers 
who  had  successfully  fabricated  Graico- Phoenician  in- 
scriptions of  the  heroic  age  of  Thebes,  or  bustrophe- 
don  monuments  of  the  time  of  Lycurgus,  to  produce 
original  autographs  of  Homer  or  Hesiod,  of  Orpheus 
or  Musseus,  on  diphthera  or  papyrus  ?  Such  docu- 
ments would  assuredly  have  been  not  less  precious 
in  the  eyes  of  credulous  Greek  archceologers  than 
a  stela  of  Hercules  or  of  Cadmus.  But  not  a  single 
allusion  is  extant  to  anything  of  the  sort.  This 
entire  silence  as  to  the  one  kind  of  pious  fraud  seems 
inexplicable,  on  the  supposition  of  the  other  kind 
having  been  so  universal  as  has  been  surmised.  But 
the  same  silence,  taken  in  connexion  with  the  greater 
general  probability  that,  among  the  written  docu- 
ments of  real  antiquity,  those  on  the  more  solid  ma- 
terial would  be  the  best  preserved,  affords  strong, 
almost   conclusive    evidence,    that    the   monumental 


414 


EARLY    HISTORY    OF   WRITING. 


Book  m. 


Rudeness 
of  the  pri- 
mitive al- 
phabet. 


dedications  advancing  claims  to  such  antiquity,  if 
not  necessarily  genuine,  were  at  least  rarely  if  ever 
wilful  forgeries.^ 

The  other  objection  to  an  early  proficiency  in  the 
art  of  writing,  founded  on  the  rude  appearance  of  the 
older  extant  specimens,  is  still  less  valid  than  that 
derived  from  their  paucity.  The  analogy  of  histori- 
cal times  abundantly  shows  an  equal  or  still  greater 
rudeness  to  be  compatible,  not  only  with  an  extensive 
application  of  the  alphabet  to  elementary  purposes, 
but  with  a  highly  flourishing  state  of  literature. 
Among  various  antient  nations,  second  only  to  the 
Greeks  in  the  cultivation  of  ornamental  art,  alpha- 
betic writing  never,  even  in  their  most  civilised 
ages,  presented  a  more  elegant  appearance  than  in 


^  Admitting  the  Greeks  to  have  occasionally  indulged  in  this  species 
of  literary  imposture,  a  few  examples  of  such  fraud  would  no  more  dis- 
prove the  existence  of  genuine  archaic  monuments  among  them,  than 
the  modern  forgeries  of  Ibramiotti,  Fourmont,  Chatterton,  or  others, 
would  justify  a  similar  inference  in  regard  to  the  genuine  antient  relics 
of  our  own  day.  But  the  fact  is,  that  not  a  single  Greek  inscription 
has  yet  been  discovered  supplying  any  reasonable  pretext  for  such  im- 
putations. The  examples  cited  by  Boeckh  (Prajf.  ad  Corp.  Insc.  Graec.) 
prove  nothing  more  than  that,  after  the  more  elegant  forms  of  the  alphabet 
had  become  general,  curious  or  fanciful  persons  were  in  the  habit  of  en- 
graving their  dedicatory  inscriptions  in  antiquated  characters  ;  precisely 
as,  in  modern  times,  the  old  black-letter  text  is  often  preferred  to  the 
Roman  in  similar  cases.  But  no  example  has  been  substantiated  of  an 
attempt  not  only  to  imitate  the  alphabetic  characters,  but  to  counterfeit  the 
facts  or  names,  of  remote  antiquity.  Nor  must  it  be  forgotten,  that  there 
were  professional  sceptics  in  antient  Greece  as  well  as  in  modern  Europe  ; 
and,  had  the  practice  of  literary  fraud  been  carried  to  such  an  extent  in 
the  former  country  as  has  been  assumed,  neither  the  counterfeits  nor  their 
authors  would  have  escaped  a  disgraceful  notoriety.  But  throughout  the 
wide  field  of  Hellenic  controversy  on  almost  every  other  kind  of  literary 
question,  there  is  here  scarcely  an  allusion  to  either  imputation  or  de- 
fence. It  seems  impossible  to  reconcile  these  facts  with  su